Timeline 1998 January - March
Return to home
1998 The UN and the US Congress
designated this year as "the year of the Ocean."
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.C10)
1998 Jan 1, The 109th Rose Bowl
Parade in Pasadena was held and Univ. of Michigan beat Washington
State 21-16, Florida State downed Ohio State 31-14 in the Sugar
Bowl.
(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A1,22)(AP, 1/1/08)
1998 Jan 1, A new anti-smoking
law went into effect in California, prohibiting people from lighting
up in bars.
(AP, 1/1/99)
1998 Jan 1, Scientists of the
Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP) reported in Nature that the
apparent fate of the universe is endless expansion.
(CW, Spring ‘99, p.6)
1998 Jan 1, Some 1-2 thousand
Hutu rebels attacked a military base and near the main airport and
150 civilians, 30 rebels and 2 soldiers were reported killed. Later
reports said as many as 300 were killed and that the army had sealed
up the area.
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.A1)(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A14)(SFC,
1/3/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 1, In Brazil the new
law making all Brazilian adults potential organ donors went into
effect. New traffic laws also went into effect. It was reported that
50,000 people die annually from car accidents because drivers
routinely ignore traffic laws.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A8)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T12)
1998 Jan 1, In Chechnya the
president asked Shamil Basayev to form a government.
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 1, In Italy navy
patrols intercepted a 2nd ship with 386 refugees, mostly Kurds,
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 1, Mongolia switched
from a 46 hour to 40 hour work week.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1998 Jan 1, In Russia the
government knocked 3 zeroes off the national currency. The old ruble
notes will be exchangeable until 2002.
(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A15)
1998 Jan 2, The defense in the
Terry Nichols trial rested its case in the penalty phase after
calling nine witnesses who pleaded for his life. Nichols had already
been convicted of conspiracy, which carried a potential death
sentence, and involuntary manslaughter for his role in the Oklahoma
City bombing. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison on federal
convictions of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter involving the
deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers. He was later
convicted of state murder charges in Oklahoma, and sentenced to 161
consecutive life sentences.
(AP, 1/2/99)(AP, 1/2/08)
1998 Jan 2, In Canada Mayor Mel
Lastman began running the new municipality of greater Toronto.
(SFC,12/897, p.A18)
1998 Jan 2, In the Czech
Republic Josef Tosovsky was sworn in as the prime minister. He
pledged economic reforms, privatization, and efforts to fight crime
and corruption.
(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 2, Italy pledged to
grant political asylum to genuine Kurdish immigrants. Another 1,300
were scheduled to soon arrive from Turkey. German and Austrian
officials feared the immigrants would spill over to their countries.
(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 2, In Mexico Judge
Maria Claudia Campuzano freed 5 suspects who were held in connection
with the Dec 15 murder of John Peter Zarate. The judge claimed
conflicting evidence as grounds for the release.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 3, Peter Christoff,
Prof. of Russian history at SF State Univ., died at age 86. His
dissertation was on Alexander Herzen and Mikhail Bakunin and he
later specialized on the Slavophil movement, which attempted to
reinforce Orthodox Christian values and Slavic cultural traditions
in the former USSR. His main work was a 4-volume "History of Russian
Slavism."
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.A19)
1998 Jan 3, In Meknassa,
Algeria, a 117 people were killed. In Chekala some 200 people were
killed. Villagers fled their homes and sought shelter in big-city
public squares.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 4, The History of the
Future Museum, a part of the Star Trek: The Experience, a $70
million attraction, was scheduled to open at the Las Vegas Hilton.
(SFEC,12/28/97, Par p.18)
1998 Jan 4, In Canada Nirmal
Singh Gill (65) was found beaten and bleeding in the parking lot of
a Sikh temple in Surrey near Vancouver. He soon died. 5 young men
linked to a white supremacist group, White Power, were later
jailed on charges of murder.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)
1998 Jan 4, In Israel David
Levy, the foreign minister, resigned. He denounced Netanyahu’s
government for abandoning the peace process and not addressing
problems with the poor and unemployed.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 5, Balloonist Steve
Fosset was forced down in Russia after completing 7,300 miles in
four days in his effort to circle the globe.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 5, Volkswagen rolled
out a new version of the Beetle at the annual Detroit Auto Show.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A2)
1998 Jan 5, Sonny Bono (62),
former 1960's pop singer and later Republican congressman, died when
he struck a tree while skiing in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. Mary Bono
later revealed that he was a heavy user of pain pills. His
gravestone contained the epithet: "And the beat goes on."
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A1)(SFC, 11/20/98, p.A5)(AP,
1/5/99)(SFEC, 5/16/99, Par p.2)
1998 Jan 5, A Canada ice storm
knocked out electricity in Quebec & Ontario.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1998 Jan 5, In China Stanford
scholar Hua Di (63) was arrested in Beijing on charges of treason
for allegedly leaking military secrets. Di was sentenced to 15 years
in prison in 1999. In 2000 the High Court ordered the lower court to
retry Di because the evidence did not warrant his conviction.
(SFC, 10/29/98, p.A23)(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A12)(SFC,
4/4/00, p.A1)
1998 Jan 5, In Denmark the
bronze head of the Little Mermaid was again sawed off in Copenhagen
harbor.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A9)(MC, 1/5/02)
1998 Jan 5, In India a train
crash in Uttar Pradesh killed at least 48 people.
(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.1)
1998 Jan 5, In Kenya Daniel
arap Moi was scheduled to be inaugurated as president after the
elections gave him 40% or 2,445,801 votes.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 5, In Lithuania Vladas
Adamkus (71), former administrator of the US Environmental
Protection Agency, won the presidency in a runoff election with
49.9% vs. 49.3% for Arturas Paulauskas.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 5, In Mexico Francisco
Labastida took over as the chief of internal security after Emilio
Chuayffet resigned under pressure from the Chiapas massacre.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 6, In a bid to expand
health insurance, President Clinton unveiled a proposal to offer
Medicare coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Americans
between the ages of 55 to 64.
(AP, 1/6/99)
1998 Jan 6, A NASA Lunar
Prospector, the 3rd robot mission of the Discovery Program, first
scheduled for Jan 5, was launched.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, p.A14)(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 6, In Bangladesh it
was reported that frigid weather killed at least 165 people over the
last 2 weeks.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 6, In Guatemala Danita
Gonzalez Plank de Orellana (32) of Philadelphia was kidnapped with
her 6-month old daughter near Quezaltenango. the baby was soon found
in a cardboard box. The mother’s body was found 8 days later. Police
alleged that a gang under Rigoberto Antonio Morales (23) was
responsible. Morales was recaptured 4 days after escaping from
prison in June.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.A13)
1998 Jan 6, In South Korea
thousands went to their banks to sell and donate gold in a
nationwide campaign to raise dollars.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 7, The jury in the
Terry Nichols case deadlocked over his punishment when it failed to
decide on how active his role in the Oklahoma bombing was. This
saved him from a death penalty and forced Judge Richard Matsch to
decide on a sentence.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/7/99)
1998 Jan 7, In Mustang, Nevada,
two blasts at the Sierra Chemical Co. plant left 4 workers feared
killed.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 7, In Afghanistan it
was reported that some 600 civilians were dragged from their homes
and shot by the Taliban army in the northwest, prompting thousands
to flee the area. Most of the victims were said to be Uzbeks.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.B3)
1998 Jan 7, In Canada the
government apologized to the nation’s indigenous peoples for past
acts of oppression and pledged $245 million for counseling and
treatment programs. The aboriginal population is about 810,000 that
includes 38,000 Inuits and 139,000 Metis, people of mixed Indian and
white ancestry.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A13)(AP, 1/7/99)
1998 Jan 7, Pres. Mohhamad
Khatami of Iran endorsed cultural relations with the US but no
political ties in a preliminary effort to "crack the wall" of
hostility between the two countries.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 7, In Mexico Chiapas
Gov. Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro submitted his resignation due to the
massacre in Acteal.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 7, In South Africa the
attorney general announced that former Pres. Peter Botha would be
prosecuted for refusing to appear before the Truth Commission and
for hindering its work.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 8, At the U.S. Figure
Skating Championships in Philadelphia, Michelle Kwan received seven
perfect presentation marks out of nine for her short program.
(AP, 1/7/99)
1998 Jan 8, Ramzi Yousef was
sentenced in New York to life in prison for the 1994 bombing of a
Philippines airliner and 240 years for masterminding the 1993
bombing of the World Trade Center.
(www.courttv.com/news/flashback/January.html)
1998 Jan 8, Air traffic control
over the Pacific broke down for 16 hours; officials said the outage
posed no real danger.
(AP, 1/7/99)
1998 Jan 8, Walter Diemer (93),
inventor (bubble gum 1928), died of heart failure.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1998 Jan 8, Sir Michael
Tippett, British composer, died at age 93.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A19)
1998 Jan 8, The EU decided to
send a fact-finding mission to Algeria. New reports said 30 more
people were killed in the region of Relizane.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 8, French Prime
Minister Lionel Jospin was forced to meet with protestors angry over
the nation’s 12.4% unemployment.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 8, In Indonesia the
currency and stock market dropped and panic buying hit retailers
after the budget failed to address the nation’s urgent needs. The
rupiah fell at one point to 10,550 to the dollar and the market
dipping 19%.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 8-1998 Jan 9, The US
Northeast and Canada were hit with a severe ice storm and at least
16 people were reported killed. Millions of people were left without
power in upper New York, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 9, Anatoly Karpow,
defending champion, defeated Viswanathan Anand in the FIDE World
Chess Championship.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A4)
1998 Jan 9, Barry Switzer's era
with the Dallas Cowboys ended with the announcement of the coach's
resignation.
(AP, 1/9/99)
1998 Jan 9, The US Dow Jones
stock market average dropped 222 points or 2.9% over fears about the
financial crises in Asia.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 9, It was reported
that the oceans have risen 6 inches this century and that the Alaska
permafrost was melting.
(WSJ, 1/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 9, In Algeria another
35 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 9, In Wuhan, China, a
thousand factory workers marched after being laid off with little
compensation.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 9, The decapitated
head of Danish Little Mermaid was returned.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1998 Jan 9, In France Prime
Minister Jospin pledged $160 million to help the unemployed, in an
attempt to end over a month of sit-ins at unemployment offices
across the country.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 9, In Northern
Ireland, the British secretary, Mo Mowlam, met with prisoners at the
Maze prison and got their endorsement for the Ulster Democratic
Party to return to peace talks. Talks with the Progressive Unionist
were scheduled for the next day.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A8)(AP, 1/9/99)
1998 Jan 9, From Pakistan it
was reported that investigators have uncovered a pattern of secret
payments by foreign governments for business favors during the 2
terms when Benazir Bhutto served as Prime Minister. These included a
$10 million payment, deposited into a Asif Zardari account by a
Middle East gold bullion dealer, for a monopoly contract to sustain
Pakistan’s jewelry industry. Officials said $80 million may be in
Swiss banks.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 10, In his weekly
radio address, President Clinton denounced Chicago physicist Richard
Seed's expressed desire to clone humans, calling it "morally
unacceptable."
(AP, 1/10/99)
1998 Jan 10, Michelle Kwan won
the ladies' U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Philadelphia; Tara
Lipinski came in second and Nicole Bobek, third.
(AP, 1/10/99)
1998 Jan 10, In China a 6.2
earthquake hit Zhangbei County in northern Hebei province and 50
people were reported killed and over 11,440 injured. The quake
reportedly left cracks in the Great Wall.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A15)(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A12)(SFC,
1/22/98, p.E3)
1998 Jan 10, In Zambia a court
filing accused Kenneth Kaunda of paying army officers $270 to stage
an October coup, promising another $13,300 if the insurrection was
successful.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 11, The Denver Broncos
beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 24-21, to win the American Football
Conference Championship; the Green Bay Packers defeated the San
Francisco 49ers, 23-10, to claim the National Football Conference
Championship.
(AP, 1/11/99)
1998 Jan 11, Klaus Tennstedt
(71), German-born conductor, died.
(www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0766447.html)
1998 Jan 11, In Algeria 11 more
people were killed over the weekend.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 11, From China it was
reported that parrots had become a speculative rage in Beijing where
a green-faced parrot could fetch $2,400.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A29)
1998 Jan 11, In Northern
Ireland Terry Enwright (28), a relative of Gerry Adams, was slain
outside the Space nightclub in Belfast. The Protestant Loyalist
Volunteer Force claimed responsibility.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 11, In Lahore,
Pakistan, 24 Shiite Muslims were killed in an attack by the
Sipah-e-Sahabah (Friends of the Guardians of the Prophet), a
militant Sunni group. The Shiites were at a ceremony marking the
2-year anniversary of the death of their teacher, Mohammed Hussein
Rizwan.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 11, In the UAR a large
oil spill resulted when an 11,000-ton oil barge ran aground. Some
4,000 tons spilled on beaches and threatened marine and bird life.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 12, The music groups
Santana, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, the Mamas and the Papas were
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Also inducted were
rockabilly legend Gene Vincent, and New Orleans musician Lloyd Price
as well as jazz composer Jelly Roll Morton and New Orleans producer
Allen Toussaint.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.D3)
1998 Jan 12, Linda Tripp
provided Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office with taped
conversations between herself and former White House intern Monica
Lewinsky.
(AP, 1/12/99)
1998 Jan 12, Former Senator
Robert Dole signed a $30,000 per month contract as a foreign agent
for Taiwan.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 12, CBS signed a $4
billion eight-year deal to televise American Football Conference
games on Sunday afternoons; Fox signed a $4.4 billion eight-year
contract to continue showing National Football Conference games on
Sunday afternoons.
(AP, 1/12/99)
1998 Jan 12, A human-cloning
ban was signed in Paris by 19 European nations.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/12/99)
1998 Jan 12, In Algeria gangs
of men hurled bombs into a mosque in Haouche Sahraoui and a
movie theater in Sidi Ahmed and up to 120 people were killed. It
coincided with the 6th anniversary of the coup that thwarted the
Islamic Salvation Front’s rise to power by cancelled elections. The
number killed was reported by local papers to be at least 400.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A11)(SFC, 1/14/98,
p.C2)(www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=10201)
1998 Jan 12, Britain and
Ireland proposed a power-sharing compromise to reconcile the divided
Protestants and Roman Catholics. Home rule was offered to Northern
Ireland under an assembly elected by proportional representation.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 12, In Burundi Hutu
rebels attacked army positions and at least 55 people were killed.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 12, Germany announced
that it will pay $110 million over 5 years in pensions to Holocaust
survivors in Eastern Europe.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 12, In Hong Kong the
Peregrine finance house collapsed due to a debt burden to an
Indonesian cab company of $260 million.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 12, Iraq authorities
said they would block a UN inspection team led by former US Marine
captain Scott Ritter.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 12, Japan announced
that the nation’s banks carried only about $580 billion in bad or
questionable loans.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 12, In Mexico Chiapas
state police opened fire on stone-throwing Indian protestors and 1
woman was killed and 2 others wounded. The government said the army
arrested 27 state police at the site of the shooting near Ocosingo.
Separately Chiapas state police commander Felipe Vazquez Espinosa
was indicted for helping arm the paramilitary gunmen of the Acteal
massacre.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 12, In Nigeria an
underwater pipeline from a Mobil Oil production platform broke and
released 40,000 barrels of oil into the Niger delta.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, p.A26)
1998 Jan 12, It was reported
that Turkish police rounded up 1,374 people, mostly Kurds, around
Istanbul in an effort to stem illegal emigration.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 12, From Venezuela it
was reported that over 140 dead dolphins were recently washed ashore
on La Tortuga Island. There were no external wounds other than some
reddish marks on the abdomen.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 13, The National
Football League completed a blockbuster $9.2 billion deal with the
Walt Disney Co., which got to keep "Monday Night Football" for ABC
and won the entire Sunday night cable package for ESPN.
(AP, 1/13/99)
1998 Jan 13, Linda Tripp, a
Pentagon aide, met with Monica Lewinsky while wearing a secret
listening device, and recorded a conversation concerning Lewinsky’s
1995 alleged affair with Pres. Clinton. It was later reported that
she had visited the White House over 3 dozen times after leaving her
job there to work at the Pentagon in 1996. Tripp came forward with
allegations that Lewinsky was planning to commit perjury in the
Jones vs. Clinton case.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A2)(SFC,
9/12/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 13, Three robbers
stole $1.17 million at the NYC World Trade Center from guards
delivering money to a currency exchange center. They returned to
their Brooklyn neighborhood where neighbors reported them and 2/3
were arrested. The robbers were dubbed the blundering bandits after
authorities said they removed their masks while under video
surveillance; three suspects were arrested.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/16/98, p.A3)(AP,
1/13/99)
1998 Jan 13, In SF four to five
men robbed a jewelry salesman in Chinatown near 3 plainclothes
police officers for some $2 million in jewels and escaped.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.A16)
1998 Jan 13, It was reported
that scientists at Geron Corp. demonstrated a method to reproduce
human cells without signs of aging. the process incorporated the use
of the telomerase protein.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 13, It was reported
that bycatch (unintended catch that is discarded) from overfishing
depletes the world’s oceans of 20 million tons a year, or roughly
one of every four pounds caught. This wasted bycatch is equivalent
to about 10 pounds of food for every person on Earth.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A6)
1998 Jan 13, An Afghan
Russian-made cargo plane crashed in southwestern Pakistan with as
many as 90 Taliban militia and all were killed.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.C2)
1998 Jan 13, In Australia a
federal court upheld the armed forces’ right to expel HIV-positive
soldiers.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.C3)
1998 Jan 13, Iraq blocked a UN
weapons inspection tem led by an American.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 13, In Israel the
Cabinet adopted a 12-page list of conditions for the Palestinians to
meet before the transfer of any more West Bank land.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.C2)
1998 Jan 13, From Rwanda The
government reported that 9 Roman Catholic nuns were killed last week
by Hutu rebels near the Congo border.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 14, Whitewater
prosecutors questioned Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House for
10 minutes about the gathering of FBI background files on past
Republican political appointees. Sources quoted Mrs. Clinton as
saying she knew nothing about any such collection of files.
(AP, 1/14/99)
1998 Jan 14, NBC agreed to pay
Warner Bros. $13 million per episode to retain the highly-rated TV
show "ER."
(AP, 1/14/99)
1998 Jan 14, Internal company
documents revealed that R.J. Reynolds actively advertised to lure
teenagers as young as 12 to smoke cigarettes.
(SFC, 1/15/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 14, An int’l.
agreement on Antarctica took effect that banned mining and oil
drilling for 50 years and forbade a wide range of environmental
hazards including pesticides and dogs.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.C16)
1988 Jan 14, The IMF and
Indonesia agreed to a strengthened economic restructuring plan.
(SFC, 1/15/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 14, In Montenegro riot
police clashed with some 10,000 protestors who attacked government
buildings the day before the inauguration of Milan Djukanovic, who
favors autonomy from Serbia.
(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 15, The Feb issue of
the American Demographics magazine noted that American adults on
average reported 58 sexual episodes a year.
(SFC, 1/15/98, p.A2)
1998 Jan 15, Pres. Clinton
presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 15 honorees. James
Farmer (d.1999 at 79), principal founder of the Congress for Racial
Equality (CORE) was one of the honorees.
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.A1,13)(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A4)
1998 Jan 15, The US and
Singapore announced an agreement for US ships to use a planned $35
million naval base beginning in 2000.
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.B4)
1998 Jan 15, Henry Cisneros'
ex-mistress, Linda Medlar Jones, pleaded guilty to misleading
federal authorities investigating the former US housing secretary's
payment of alleged hush money to her. She served nearly 18 months in
prison and was later pardoned by Pres. Clinton.
(AP, 1/15/08)
1998 Jan 15, US Labor Secretary
Alexis Herman denied allegations that she had sold her influence in
the White House. Herman was cleared in 2000 by Independent Counsel
Ralph I. Lancaster.
(AP, 1/15/08)
1998 Jan 15, Junior Wells (63),
Chicago Blues harmonica star, died. His album "Hoodoo Man Blues" was
recorded in the 1960s and considered by many as one of the best
all-time blues albums.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A19)(MC, 1/15/02)
1998 Jan 15, In Algeria the
government agreed to a revamped EU delegation to seek ways to end
the violence.
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.B4)
1998 Jan 15, Eastern Slavonia
reintegrated into Croatia. Some 75,000 Croat refugees promised
friction with the Serbs occupying their homes. The 2-year UN peace
mission ended but 180 int’l. observers were to remain as monitors.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, Par p.2)(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A1)(SFC,
1/16/98, p.B2)
1998 Jan 15, In Sri Lanka a
Jaffna library of Tamil literature was reopened as a gesture
conciliatory gesture toward separatist rebels.
(WSJ, 1/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 15, In Turkey the
parliament passed legislation allowing husbands to be indicted for
domestic abuse even if their wives refuse to press charges.
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.B4)
1998 Jan 16, Texas settled with
the tobacco industry for $15.3 billion.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A6)(AP, 1/16/99)
1998 Jan 16, NASA officially
announced that John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth,
would fly aboard the space shuttle later in the year.
(AP, 1/16/99)
1998 Jan 16, Baltic leaders
signed an agreement, the US-Baltics Charter of Partnership, at the
White House strengthening US and NATO ties with Latvia, Lithuania,
and Estonia. The leaders also established a $15 million fund with
equal contributions from the Agency for Int’l. Development and
George Soros to promote nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
(WSJ, 1/16/98, p.A1)(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 16, In El Salvador
Israel Job Pineda, a fisherman in La Herradura, was shot and killed
by a pirate intruder. Pirates had become a growing threat to the
local shrimp fisherman. Police later arrested nine fishermen linked
to the attack.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.A26)
1998 Jan 16, In Germany the
Bonn Parliament took steps to allowing private phones to be bugged.
The Bundestag (lower house) voted to secure a 2/3 majority needed to
change the constitution to give police greater powers.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 16, In Guatemala 13
college students and 3 faculty members from St. Mary's College of
Maryland were robbed and 5 women were raped after their bus was
ambushed near Santa Lucia. 4 suspects were later arrested and 3 more
were sought by police. In 1999 three men, Cosbi Gamaliel Ortiz (38),
Rony Leonel Polanco Sil (29) and Reyes Guch Ventura (25), were
convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A8)(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A8)
1998 Jan 16, From Indonesia it
was reported that Pres. Suharto and his six children have an
estimated net worth of $40 billion, equal to about half the
country’s gross domestic product.
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.B3)
1998 Jan 16, In Kenya the WHO
recommended that travelers take precautions against Rift Valley
Fever, a mosquito born disease that has killed 300 people.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 16, It was reported
that Nevis planned to withdraw from St. Kitts if 2/3 of the voters
approved a midyear referendum. The 9,000 citizens of Nevis lived on
36 square miles, while the 35,000 people of St. Kitts lived on 65
square miles. Nevisians were particularly upset about drug barons on
St. Kitts, especially Charles "Little Nut" Miller.
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.B2)
1998 Jan 16, In Turkey the
Islamist Welfare Party was banned by the Constitutional Court for
"activities against the secular regime." Former Welfare deputies
created the Virtue Party.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A1)(AP, 11/4/02)
1998 Jan 17, Pres. Clinton was
interrogated in his deposition In the Paula Jones case. It was the
first time a sitting president was interrogated in a court case.
During the nearly six hours of sworn testimony, Clinton denied that
he had engaged in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A1)(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A12)(AP,
1/17/99)
1998 Jan 17, Matt Drudge
reported over the Internet that Monica Lewinsky had paid numerous
service calls to the White House.
(WSJ, 10/24/00, p.A22)
1998 Jan 17, It was reported
that the US military had begun to clear away over 50,000 land mines
around Guantanamo Naval base. The base was defended by 400 marines.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 17, It was reported
that motorists in Cairo were switching to compressed natural gas
(CNG) to fuel their vehicles. It was both cheaper and burned
cleaner. Over 5,000 vehicles had made the switch.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 17, In Iraq Sadam
Hussein threatened to expel all UN arms inspectors in 6 months if
the country is not cleared of suspicions about weapons programs and
if sanctions are not lifted.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 17, In South Korea
some 2,500 workers marched in Seoul to protest the government’s
labor reform plan. Kim Dae-jung called for a smaller labor force to
attract more funds from the IMF and foreign investors.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A14)
1998 Jan 18, The annual Golden
Globes awards in Beverly Hills awarded "Titanic" the best drama,
best director for James Cameron, best score and best original song.
"As Good as it Gets" won as best film comedy/musical, best actor for
Jack Nicholson, and best actress for Helen Hunt. "Ally McBeal" beat
"Seinfeld" as best TV comedy.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.E1)(AP, 1/18/99)
1998 Jan 18, Pope John Paul II
named 22 new cardinals, including Archbishop Francis Eugene George
of Chicago and James Francis Stafford, the former archbishop of
Denver.
(AP, 1/18/99)
1998 Jan 18, The Bosnian Serb
Parliament named a coalition government led by Milorad Dodik, a
pro-western leader of the Independent Social Democrats.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 18, In Jordan
assailants assassinated 8 people in a hilltop villa that included a
top Iraqi diplomat, Hikmet Hajou, and Iraqi businessman Namir Ochi,
who handled food imports to Iraq for Saddam Hussein.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.B2)
1998 Jan 18, In Northern
Ireland Fergal McCusker (28) was killed by the Loyalist Volunteer
Force in Maghera.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 19, This was the
Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. During a ceremony in Atlanta
commemorating the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Vice President
Gore announced that the Clinton administration would propose
increasing spending on civil rights by $86 million.
(AP, 1/19/98)(AP, 1/19/99)
1998 Jan 19, The US and China
signed an accord designed to avoid naval and air conflicts at sea.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.B2)
1998 Jan 19, The FDA decided
that is has the authority to regulate human cloning, and that it
would be a violation of federal law to try the procedure without its
approval.
(SFC, 1/20/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 19, Carl Perkins,
rockabilly king, died at age 65 in Jackson, Tenn. He wrote and
recorded the hit "Blue Suede Shoes" in 1955 and it hit the top
of the charts in 1956. He also wrote "Daddy Sang Bass" recorded by
Johnny Cash.
(SFC, 1/20/98, p.A1,8)(AP, 1/19/99)
1998 Jan 19, European
diplomats arrived in Algeria to discuss ways to end the violence
after another 16 people were killed in an eastern province.
(SFC, 1/20/98, p.D2)(WSJ, 1/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 19, In Northern
Ireland Jim Guiney (38), a Protestant shopkeeper, was shot and
killed in his Belfast carpet store. Later a 52-year-old Catholic
taxi driver was shot and killed in Belfast in apparent retaliation
for Guiney.
(SFC, 1/20/98, p.D1)
1998 Jan 19, Peru and Ecuador
signed an accord pledging to settle their longtime 49-mile border
conflict by May.
(WSJ, 1/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 19, In Rwanda Hutu
rebels killed 35 brewery workers and wounded 25 near Gisenyi.
(WSJ, 1/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 19, In Harare,
Zimbabwe, people rioted over soaring food prices. The price of corn
meal, the staple food, rose 21%, the 3rd increase in 4 months.
(SFC, 1/20/98, p.D2)
1998 Jan 20, The Idaho Coeur
d’Alene Indian tribe planned to begin a national online lottery
called US Lottery. US residents will be restricted by their local
state laws.
(SFC, 1/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 20, In Texas jury
selection in the multi-million-dollar lawsuit trial of Oprah Winfrey
began. She was being sued by Texas cattlemen for remarks on her Apr
16, 1996 show about mad cow disease. The case was initially a test
of the state’s 1995 "veggie libel" law that protected perishable
food products from false and defamatory statements, but was ruled to
proceed as a common-law business defamation case. Winfrey won the
case on Feb 26.
(SFC, 1/21/98,
p.A3)(www.cnn.com/US/9802/26/oprah.verdict/)
1998 Jan 20, In Algeria the
European envoys concluded their mission as 3 people were killed by a
bomb in Ben Aknoun District, another 3 by a bomb in the village of
Ziralda. 2 people died from a bomb thrown into a cafe in Boussaken.
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia offered his nation’s assistance to end the
bloodshed.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 20, The 1st criminal
suit was filed against Chile’s Gen’l. Pinochet for human rights
violations.
(SFC, 12/11/06, p.A4)
1998 Jan 20, In the Congo
Joseph Olengankoy, opposition leader, was arrested in Kinshasa. He
had refused to meet with Pres. Kabila to discuss his criticism.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.C12)
1998 Jan 20, In the Czech
Republic Pres. Vaclav Havel won re-election by a slim margin in a
2nd round vote of parliament.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.C12)
1998 Jan 20, In Indonesia Pres.
Suharto (76) announced plans for another 5-year term. He hinted that
his vice-pres. would be Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie (61).
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.C12)
1998 Jan 20, In Zimbabwe army
troops were ordered into Harare to quell 2 days of unrest.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.C12)
1998 Jan 21, Pres. Clinton
angrily denied charges that he had a sexual affair with Monica
Lewinsky (24), a White House aide in 1995, and that he encouraged
Lewinsky to lie under oath about their involvement.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/1/99)
1998 Jan 21, The FBI arrested
dozens of prison guards and police officers in the Cleveland area
following a 2-year sting operation on cocaine trafficking.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A7)
1998 Jan 21, Jack Lord, TV star
of "Hawaii Five-O" fame, died in Honolulu at age 77. In 2006 it was
revealed that he left behind $40 million to a dozen local charities.
(AP, 1/1/99)(SSFC, 2/26/06, Par p.2)
1998 Jan 21, In Bosnia Western
mediators unveiled a common currency and ordered that it be accepted
by the Muslims, Serbs and Croats.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.B2)
1988 Jan 21, In Burundi Hutu
rebels killed 45 people in 2 attacks, and 20 rebels died in a
subsequent battle with the army.
(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 21, Pope John Paul II
arrived in Cuba for a 4-day historic visit.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.B2)(AP, 1/1/99)
1998 Jan 22, Theodore J.
Kaczynski pleaded guilty in Sacramento, Calif., to the Unabomber
killings in return for a sentence of life in prison without parole.
In Dec. co-authors Chris Waits and Dave Shors published "Unabomber:
The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski. His 25 Years in Montana." In 1999
Michael Mello published "The United States of America Versus
Theodore John Kaczynski: Ethics, Power and the Invention of the
Unabomber."
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/22/99)(SFEC, 9/12/99,
BR p.5)
1998 Jan 22, Microsoft under
court pressure signed an agreement giving PC makers the freedom to
install Windows 95 without an Internet Explorer icon.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A30)
1998 Jan 22, The Endeavour
space shuttle shot up on its way to meet with the Mir space station.
Astronaut Andrew Thomas traded places with David Wolf for a 4-month
stint.
(SFC, 1/23/98, p.A5)
1998 Jan 22, Goran Jelisic
(29) was detained by UN peace troops in Bijeljina. An indictment
against him held that he commanded the Luka prisoner camp in Brcko
in May 1992 and killed 16 Muslims, and that he was responsible for
the deaths of countless detainees. In 1999, he was found guilty on
all counts of crimes against humanity and violating the customs of
war. He was acquitted on the charge of genocide as the court did not
believe the prosecution had proved this beyond reasonable doubt. On
May 29, 2003, Jelisić was transferred to Italy to serve the
remainder of his sentence with credit for time served since his
arrest.
(SFC, 1/22/98,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goran_Jelisi%C4%87)
1998 Jan 22, On the first full
day of his visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass,
preaching the message, "Be not afraid."
(AP, 1/22/99)
1998 Jan 22, In Pristina,
Serbia, ethnic Albanians clashed with Serbian police. There was one
death and 2 were injured.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 23, Fighting scandal
allegations involving Monica Lewinsky, President Clinton assured his
Cabinet that he was innocent.
(AP, 1/23/99)
1998 Jan 23, A judge in
Fairfax, Va., sentenced Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an assault rifle
attack outside CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and
wounded three other people. Kasi was executed November 2002.
(AP, 1/23/03)
1998 Jan 23, In Albania troops
stormed into Shkorda to end 2 days of looting and burnings. Rioters
were demanding the release from jail of 2 men loyal to former Pres.
Berisha. Berisha denounced the violence and ties to the jailed men.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 23, Pres. Carlos Menem
ordered the navy to expel Alfredo Astiz, a former death squad
officer. Astiz was sentenced in absentia to life in prison in France
for the murder of 2 nuns and was wanted in Sweden for the murder of
Dagmar Hagelin, a teenage girl. Astiz surrendered to Interpol in
2001. In 2009 Astiz went on trial for the deaths of 2 French nuns, a
journalist and 3 founders of a human rights group.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A10)(SFC, 7/3/01, p.A7)(SFC,
12/11/09, p.A2)
1998 Jan 23, From China it was
reported that millions of workers were being laid off in the
northeast industrial belt cities like Harbin and Shenyang.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.E2)
1998 Jan 23, Pope John Paul II
condemned the US embargo against Catholic Cuba.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/jan-june98/pope_1-23.html)
1998 Jan 23, In France a
massive avalanche killed at least 11 people near the Italian border.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 23, In Belfast,
Northern Ireland, Liam Conway, a Catholic worker, was shot and
killed. The Ulster Freedom Fighters earlier claimed responsibility
for 3 Catholic deaths since new year’s Eve. The Ulster Volunteer
Force was suspected in Conway’s death.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 23, In Papua New
Guinea warring parties on Bougainville signed a peace agreement that
would go into effect on April 30. An estimated 10,000 people died
during the 10 year civil strife, mostly non-combatants from
untreated disease. Some 1,000 rebels died and about 2,200 government
sympathizers.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1,14)
1998 Jan 23, In Venezuela
Alicia Machado (21), a former Miss Universe, drove the getaway car
following an attempted murder by her boyfriend, Juan Rodriguez
Reggeti.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 24, President Clinton,
in his weekly radio address, unveiled a proposal to root out
Medicare fraud.
(AP, 1/24/99)
1998 Jan 24, Walter D. Edmonds,
writer, died at age 94. His work included historic novels such as
"Drums Along the Mohawk" in 1936.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.B2)
1998 Jan 24, Pope John Paul II,
delivering blunt political messages during his visit to Cuba, called
for the release of "prisoners of conscience" and respect for freedom
of expression, initiative and association.
(AP, 1/24/99)
1998 Jan 24, In Mexico former
Gen’l. Jorge Maldonado Vega was arrested for allegedly trying to
arrange a pact between two of the largest drug cartels. Captain
Rigoberto Silva Ortega was also charged.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.B12)
1998 Jan 24, From Turkey it was
reported that an estimated 50,000 illegal immigrants move from
Turkey to Greece each year across a sparsely populated 80 mile
border.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 25, "Grease" closed at
Eugene O'Neill Theater NYC after 1,503 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4610)
1998 Jan 25, In Superbowl XXXII
the Denver Broncos faced the Green Bay Packers. The Broncos led by
John Elway won their first Super Bowl title in four tries, defeating
the Green Bay Packers 31-24.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.C1)(AP, 1/25/99)
1998 Jan 25, American astronaut
Andrew Thomas moved from the space shuttle Endeavour into the
Russian space station Mir as the relief for David Wolf.
(AP, 1/25/99)
1998 Jan 25, In Algeria 20
people had their throats cut in the village of Frenda. Local media
reported that 50 people were killed in Kaid Ben Larbi. Ambushes and
bombings were widespread as the celebration of Leilat El Qadr (night
of destiny) began in recognition of the end of Ramadan. The
government reported 29 rebels killed in 3 clashes in the last few
days.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 25, In Cuba Pope John
Paul II spoke in Revolution Square on his final day in the country.
He urged Castro to respect human rights.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 25, In Wandhama,
India, north of Srinagar, Muslim separatists killed 23 Hindus.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 25, In Israel the
chief rabbinate proposed that the state recognize Reform and
Conservative converts as Jews.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 25, In Italy
kidnappers of industrialist Giuseppe Soffiantini sent a slice of his
ear and a note to a TV news station. The ransom was reportedly
reduced to about $6 million.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.B12)
1998 Jan 25, In Sri Lanka
suicide bombers killed themselves and 8 others as their truck
crashed through the gates of the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. The
temple reportedly held a tooth of the Buddha brought from India in
the 4th century. Enraged Sinhalese burned down a Hindu cultural
center in Kandy in retaliation.
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 25, In Turkey Prime
Minister Yilmaz disclosed that the Ciller government’s security
forces used death squads against Kurds and engaged in drug
trafficking. This was a result of the 7-month investigation of the
Susurluk scandal.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A15)
1998 Jan 26, Pres. Clinton
firmly denied, with a finger shaking at the camera, having sexual
relations with Monica Lewinsky: "I did not have sexual relations
with that woman…I never told anybody to lie."
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 11/15/98, p.A3)(SFC,
12/30/99, p.C7)
1998 Jan 26, Stung by a drop in
profits, AT&T said it would cut at least 15,000 jobs, freeze
executive salaries and shake up management to reduce costs.
(AP, 1/26/99)
1998 Jan 26, Compaq Computer
Corp. announced that it would buy Digital Equipment Corp. for $9.6
billion.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 26, Intel introduced a
333 MHz chip. It was code-named Deschutes and was expected to reach
450Mhz speed by the end of the year.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.B5)
1998 Jan 26, In Chile Gen’l.
Pinochet (82) backed away from scheduled retirement after the
Christian Democratic Party filed suit to prevent him from becoming a
senator for life.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 26, In Japan public
prosecutors raided the Ministry of Finance and arrested 2 bank
regulators, Koichi Miyagawa (53) and Toshimi Taniuchi (48), on
bribery charges.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 26, Shinichi Suzuki
(99), pioneer of the 1950s Suzuki method for teaching music to young
children, died in Japan.
(SFC, 1/27/98,
p.A20)(www.suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki/)
1998 Jan 26, In Jordan the
Supreme Court suspended an amendment to the press law, passed last
May, and cleared the way for 12 newspapers to resume publishing.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 26, In Northern
Ireland the Ulster Democratic Party, the largest pro-British
paramilitary group, withdrew from peace talks.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 27, Shaken by scandal,
Pres. Clinton made his State of the Union address and proposed
bolstering Social Security with the current surplus, improving
schools by reducing class size and building more, raising the
minimum wage, and making child care more available for low-income
families before cutting taxes or increasing spending. He also issued
a warning to Sadam Hussein of Iraq and asked Congress to support
NATO expansion. Earlier in the day, First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton, appearing on NBC's "Today" show, charged the allegations
against her husband were the work of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/27/99)
1998 Jan 27, The UN named Gro
Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway as the head
of the World Health Organization (WHO).
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Jan 27, In Britain poet
laureate Ted Hughes won the $33,000 Whitbread Book of the Year award
for his "Tales of Ovid."
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.E6)
1998 Jan 27, The Chinese lunar
year of 4696, the year of the tiger, began. According to ancient
legend the count began when Buddha called all the animals of the
world and promised to name a year after each one in exchange for
eternal loyalty and obeisance. Only 12 answered the call in the
following order: rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, ram,
monkey, rooster, dog, and bear.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A19)(SFC, 1/28/98, p.A16)
1998 Jan 27, In Japan Hiroshi
Mitsuzuka, the finance minister, announced that he will resign
following the arrests of 2 senior officials on bribery charges.
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Jan 27, In Sierra Leone
fighting broke out between junta troops and Nigerian peacekeepers
trying to restore Pres. Kabbah.
(WSJ, 1/28/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 27, The UN Security
Council approved a 3-month extension for peacekeeping operations in
Angola.
(WSJ, 1/28/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 28, The day after his
State of the Union address, President Clinton barnstormed in the
nation's heartland, where he was warmly received; accompanying him
was Vice President Al Gore, who urged Americans to "join me in
supporting him and standing by his side."
(AP, 1/28/99)
1998 Jan 28, Michelangelo's
"Christ & the Woman of Samaria" sold for $7.4 million.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1998 Jan 28, In Algeria the
military reported 3 more civilian massacres that killed 34 people
and said that 18 Muslim rebels were killed.
(WSJ, 1/29/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 28, In Burundi Colonel
Firmin Sinzoyiheba, the Tutsi minister of defense, was killed in a
helicopter crash in the Gihinga Hills.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 28, In the Czech
Republic prime minister Josef Tosovsky’s government won a vote of
confidence in the parliament 123-71.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 28, Israel’s finance
minister, Yaakov Neeman, met with US officials and outlined a plan
to end the $1.2 billion annual economic package over 10-12 years
with an increase in annual military aid from $1.8 billion to 2.4
billion.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 28, From Kenya it was
reported that 77 people died in the month in attacks aimed at ethnic
Kikuyus, who opposed Pres. Moi’s re-election.
(WSJ, 1/28/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 28, In India the 26
people accused of the May 21, 1991 assassination of Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi were sentenced to death by hanging. Authorities braced
for possible unrest. Only 2 of the 26 were charged with murder, the
rest were charged with conspiracy.
(WSJ, 1/28/98, p.A1)(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 28, In Japan two more
finance ministry officials resigned and a 3rd committed suicide.
Separately the lower house passed a $16 billion income tax cut.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 28, In Chiapas,
Mexico, Rubicel Ruiz Gamboa, a peasant organizer in Ocosingo, was
gunned down in an ambush.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A22)
1998 Jan 28, In Mexico federal
police in Guerrero came upon the anti-kidnapping squad of Morelos
with the tortured body of a 17-year-old member of a kidnapping gang.
They suspected that the body was to be dumped and arrested the state
officers that included Armando Martinez Salgado, chief of the squad.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 28, From Switzerland 3
balloonists set out to circle the globe in the Breitling Orbiter 2.
They failed to get clearance from flying over China in time and were
forced down in Burma on Feb 7 after traveling a record 4,730 miles.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.11)
1998 Jan 28, In Thailand
officials at Chulalongkorn Univ. posted posters forbidding the
wearing of miniskirts.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 29, The judge in the
Paula Jones case ruled that allegations in the current
Clinton-Lewinsky scandal will not be admitted in the Jones case.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 29, Yah Lin Trie
("Charlie Trie"), a Little Rock restaurateur, was indicted under 15
counts in relation to fund raising for the Democratic Party. In 1999
Trie agreed to plead guilty to 2 counts of violating federal
election laws, one felony and one misdemeanor for a maximum of 3
years probation.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A2)
1998 Jan 29, In Birmingham,
Ala., the New Woman, All Woman Health Care [abortion] Clinic was
bombed. Robert Sanderson (35), a moonlighting police officer, was
killed and Emily Lyons, a nurse, was critically injured. A note was
later received claiming the "Army of God" was responsible. Suspect
Eric Robert Rudolph (31) of North Carolina was arrested May 31,2003.
Rudolph was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2005.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A2)(SSFC,
6/1/03, p.A1)(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A9)
1998 Jan 29, The US, Russia and
13 other nations of the European Space Agency agreed to cooperate on
building an int’l. space station.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A7)
1998 Jan 29, The 3-day Muslim
Eid al-Fitr festival began celebrating the closing of the holy month
of Ramadan.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 29, In Japan Finance
Vice Minister Takeshi Komura stepped down in the bribery scandal and
said "the responsibility is all mine."
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 29, A gas explosion on
a Russian nuclear sub killed the captain and injured at least 4
sailors.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A14)
1998 Jan 30, In Washington DC
the creation of The National First Ladies’ Library was announced at
the Renwick Gallery. Physical materials would be located in Canton,
Ohio, in the childhood home of Ida Saxton McKinley, the 20th first
lady.
(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 30, An aviation pact
was reached between Washington and Tokyo, enabling American
travelers to fly to Japan and other Asian points from several more
U.S. cities.
(AP, 1/30/99)
1998 Jan 30, In Sarasota,
Florida, a 14-year-old girl was found staggering along a road. She
had been raped and stabbed nearly 30 times and beaten badly four
days earlier. She hid in the woods in fear of her assailant,
Scott Christopher Malsky (22), who was arrested in Delaware the next
day.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 30, In Colombia
paramilitary gunmen descended on the city of Puerto Asis and
proceeded to kill 48 civilians thought to be guerrilla sympathizers.
Mayor Nestor Hernandez warned army commanders at a local garrison
but received no assistance.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 30, From Hong Kong it
was reported that real estate prices were diving down. Prices were
reported down 25% since August.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 30, From India it was
reported that over the past 2 months over 50 cotton farmers in
Andhra Pradesh state had committed suicide due to farming losses
caused by cluster caterpillars.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A13)
1998 Jan 30, It was reported
that Iraq had executed 10 people for stealing the huge bearded head
of a large winged-bull dating from 700 BC.
(SFC, 1/31/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 30, In Lebanon the
army clashed with supporters of Sheik Sobhi Tufaili in Baalbek and
at least 50 people were killed. Tufaili had been expelled a week
earlier from the Muslim fundamentalist Hezbollah.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A21)
1998 Jan 30, In Spain Alberto
Jimenez Becerril, a Popular Party Councilman, and his wife, Asuncion
Garcia Ortiz, were assassinated in Seville.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 30, In the Sudan the
city of Wau fell to rebels who pretended to defect and then attacked
from inside.
(SFC, 1/31/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 31, The space shuttle
Endeavour returned from Mir with its crew of 7. Astronaut David Wolf
returned to Earth after four months on the Russian space station
Mir.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A2)(AP, 1/31/99)
1998 Jan 31, In Japan the XVIII
Winter Olympic Games opened in Nagano.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C3)
1998 Jan 31, In Mexico, three
Indian villagers were found hanged in the Chiapas town of Ocosingo.
Also Antonio Gomez Flores, an Ocosingo peasant leader, died when a
truck smashed into his car as he left the funeral of Rubicel Ruiz
Gamboa.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A22)
1998 Jan, A Group called the
Project for the New American Century issued a public letter to Pres.
Clinton on the subject of Iraq, citing the threat posed by Saddam
Hussein as the most serious since the end of the Cold War. Among the
18 signatories were Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay
Khalilzad, John Bolton and political theorist Francis Fukuyama.
(WSJ, 3/11/06, p.P10)
1998 Jan, The Croatian
government passed a decree that permitted the eviction of thousands
of Serbs from state-owned apartments in Eastern Slavonia. The decree
was rescinded in Feb.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D3)
1998 Jan, In Ethiopia editors
and journalists of Tobia, the largest and most respected independent
publication, were arrested after publishing a secret UN document
critical of the government.
(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A14)
1998 Jan, In the Dominican
Republic the 6-month sugar cane harvest began and thousands of
Haitians were entering the country illegally to work.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan, In Guatemala Pres.
Alvaro Arzu awarded a 5-year concession to administer government
postal services to Int’l. Post Services, a subsidiary of Canada
Post.
(WSJ, 6/5/98, p.A15)
1998 Jan, Masked gunmen killed
23 people in a village near Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu
and Kashmir.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.D1)
1998 Jan, In Romania the IMF
froze the disbursement of a $530 million lending program.
(WSJ, 5/6/98, p.A18)
1998 Jan, In South Africa 6
white police officers made a video tape showing a "training
exercise" where they incited their dogs to maul 3 black men and beat
the victims if they tried to protect themselves. The officers were
arrested in 2000 on charges of attempted murder. 4 officers pleaded
guilty in 2001.
(SFC, 11/10/00, p.A17)(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A1)
1998 Feb 1, In a round of
Sunday talk show appearances, Monica Lewinsky's attorney, William
Ginsburg, predicted that the controversy over whether the former
White House intern had had an affair with President Clinton would
"go away" and that the president would survive unscathed.
(AP, 2/1/03)
1998 Feb 1, In Costa Rica
Miguel Angel Rodriguez of the Social Christian Unity Party won the
presidential elections by a narrow margin over Jose Miguel Corrales
of the National Liberation party. Also elected were 2
vice-presidents, 57 members of the Legislative Assembly and 571
mayors.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 1, With Israeli and
Palestinian leaders digging in their heels, Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright conceded she'd made little progress in a
whirlwind visit to the region to prod the two sides closer together.
(AP, 2/1/99)
1998 Feb 2, Pres. Clinton
proposed a $1.73 trillion fiscal 1999 budget and projected a $10
billion surplus, the first year without a deficit since 1969. He
planned to pump billions to schools, health and child care.
(WSJ, 2/2/98, p.A1)(AP, 2/2/99)
1998 Feb 2, The US government
released statistics showing deaths from AIDS fell by almost half
during the first half of 1997, a decrease attributed to increased
use of powerful combinations of medicines.
(AP, 2/2/99)
1998 Feb 2, In Florida three
days of storms began the left an estimated damage of over $25
million. Gov. Chiles requested $19 million in federal disaster aid.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 2, UN Sec-Gen'l. Kofi
Annan recommended that the Security Council more than double the
amount of oil Iraq is allowed to sell.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A6)
1998 Feb 2, In Algeria the
military reported that they killed 60 rebels in a weekend offensive.
Local media said 17 civilians were killed in 3 massacres in western
and southern provinces.
(WSJ, 2/3/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 2, Russia announced
that an envoy in Baghdad received concessions from Saddam Hussein on
UN weapons inspections. US Sec. Albright failed to get permission
from Saudi Arabia for US use of air bases to launch air strikes
against Iraq. France, Turkey, Jordan, the Arab League and Yasser
Arafat said they would send envoys to Baghdad to avert a possible US
military strike.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A6)
1998 Feb 2, In the Philippines
a Cebu Pacific Air DC-9 crashed on Mount Sumagaya as it approached
for landing at Cagayan de Oro. 104 people were onboard. Rescuers
reached the wreckage the next day but found no survivors.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A6)(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C3)
1998 Feb 3, A new 32-cent
postage stamp in honor of John Muir was to be issued at the
Martinez, Ca. post office.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A19)
1998 Feb 3, Mary Kay
LeTourneau, 36, former Washington state teacher, violated probation
with the 14 year-old father of her baby.
(http://tinyurl.com/7smjq)
1998 Feb 3, In California heavy
rains continued to thrash the state and rivers in Northern
California spilled over their banks.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 3, In Savannah, Tenn.,
a helicopter used to install power lines struck a worker on a
utility pole and crashed. Three people were killed and 2 injured.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 3, In Texas Karla Faye
Tucker (38) was executed by lethal injection with sodium thiopental
for the 1983 pickax slaying of 2 people during a break-in in 1983.
She was the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/4/99, p.R4)(AP,
2/3/99)
1998 Feb 3, Heavy storms hit
the Southeast and Western US and 4 tornadoes hit the Miami area.
(WSJ, 2/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 3, Armenia Pres. Levon
Ter-Petrosyan (52) resigned after 7 years of leadership. His support
for a compromise settlement over the Nagorno-Karabakh caused backers
to defect to the opposition.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C2)
1998 Feb 3, A US surveillance
aircraft cut a ski cable in Italy and caused the death of 20 skiers
in a gondola cable car running from Cavalese to the Alpe Cermis. The
EA-6B aircraft was normally used for patrols over Bosnia and was
only slightly damaged. Lt. Col. Steven Watters was later relieved of
command for telling crew members of a related squadron to destroy
evidence in the investigation. The pilot did not have Italian
military maps that identified the ski lift. Four crewmen were later
charged by the Marine Corps with negligent homicide, involuntary
manslaughter and dereliction of duty. The pilot and navigator faced
trial for manslaughter. Pilot Richard J. Ashby was acquitted of all
charges in 1999. Navigator Joseph Schweitzer was acquitted of
manslaughter and negligent homicide charges. Schweitzer later
pleaded guilty to obstruction and conspiracy charges for destroying
a videotape made during the flight. The tape indicated that the
plane had been flying upside down. Schweitzer was sentenced to
dismissal from the Marine Corps. Capt. Ashby (32) was found guilty
of obstruction of justice and conspiracy in May, 1999 and was
sentenced to 6 months in prison and dismissed from the Marine Corps.
Families of the victims settled for $2 million apiece in 2000.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A7)(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A11)(SFC,
2/19/98, p.B10)(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A14)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A2)(SFC,
3/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/16/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/30/99, p.A1)(SFC, 4/3/99,
p.A3)(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A4)(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A4)(SFC, 5/11/99, p.A4)(SFC,
4/26/00, p.A4)
1998 Feb 3, In Japan a 3-rocket
attack on Tokyo’s Narita Airport did no damage but slightly injured
a cargo handler. Three rockets were involved. Later the leftist
Revolutionary Workers Association claimed responsibility.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C3)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.11)
1998 Feb 4, Congress voted to
name Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan, just in time
for his 87th birthday on Feb 6.
(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 4, It was reported
that Berkshire Hathaway, the investment vehicle of Warren Buffet,
had accumulated 129.7 million ounces of sliver, some 20% of the
world’s supply, valued at $858.6 million.
(WSJ, 2/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 4, Alfred Mann (72),
the originator of 7 medical device and electronics companies,
announced $100 million donations to both the Univ. of Southern Cal.
and the Univ. of Cal. at Los Angeles to set up biomedical research
institutes.
(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 4, In Afghanistan a
5.9 earthquake hit the province of Takhar in the northeast at the
junction of the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountain ranges where hills
collapsed into each other making a huge crater. The number dead was
later reported to be 2,300 with 8,000 left homeless.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A10)(SFC, 6/1/98, p.A1)(AP,
2/4/99)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A14)
1998 Feb 4, In Morocco King
Hassan II appointed Abderrahmane El Toussoufi, opposition leader of
the Socialist Union of People’s Forces, as prime minister.
(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A13)
1998 Feb 4, A North Korean
diplomat with a UN agency in Rome defected to South Korea. He
reported that North Korea executed its agricultural chief in 1997
and dozens of Communist youth league members in a purge by Kim Jong
Il.
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 4, In Rwanda Hutu
rebels slaughtered 33 people in the Ruhemgeri region.
(SFC, 2/9/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 5, Pres. Clinton
ordered 2,000 Marines to the Persian Gulf and met with PM Tony Blair
of Britain to discuss the possible use of force against Iraq.
(SFC, 2/6/98, p.E2)
1998 Feb 5, Democratic
fundraiser Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie pleaded innocent in Washington to
charges he'd raised illegal donations to buy influence in high
places. Trie pleaded guilty in May 1999 to a felony count and a
misdemeanor and was sentenced later that year to four months' home
detention and three years' probation.
(AP, 2/5/03)
1998 Feb 5, A federal
judge in Los Angeles threw out Charles Keating's state securities
fraud conviction for a second time, saying the trial judge had given
jurors flawed instructions. In 1999, on the eve of the retrial of
the federal case, Keating entered a plea agreement: he admitted to
having committed bankruptcy fraud by extracting $1 million from
American Financial Corp. while already anticipating the collapse
that happened weeks later; in return, the federal prosecutors
dropped all other charges against him and his son, Charles Keating
III. He was sentenced to the four years he had already served.
(AP,
2/5/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Keating)
1998 Feb 5, In Germany
thousands protested the high unemployment rate. It had reached
12.6%, or 4.8 million people.
(SFC, 2/6/98, p.E3)
1998 Feb 5, In India a tractor
pulling a trolley full of children crashed into a truck and plunged
into a river and killed at least 34 in Madhya Pradesh state.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.11)
1998 Feb 5, In the Ivory Coast
Kevin Leveille (26), a Peace Corp worker from Ventura, Ca., was
attacked and killed in Tanda. He had 2 months left in his assigned
task of working on water and sanitation problems.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.11)
1998 Feb 5, In Kenya Pres. Moi
imposed a curfew on towns in the Rift Valley where over 100 people
have died in ethnic and political violence. Jomo Kenyatta Univ. in
Nairobi was closed following a protest against the violence.
(WSJ, 2/6/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 5, In Sierra Leone
fighting began as Nigerian led intervention forces moved to oust the
military junta.
(SFC, 2/12/98, p.A12)(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D5)
1998 Feb 6, President Clinton
and British Prime Minister Tony Blair redoubled their pledge to use
military force against Iraq if necessary; during a joint news
conference in which the subject of Monica Lewinsky came up, Clinton
said he would never resign.
(AP, 2/6/99)
1998 Feb 6, President Clinton
signed a bill changing the name of Washington National Airport to
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
(AP, 2/6/99)
1998 Feb 6, Two US warplanes
collided in the Persian Gulf and one of the pilots was killed.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 6, Mayor Brown of SF
left for Manila and was expected to sign agreements with Mayor
Alfredo Lim for workshops on AIDS, student exchange programs, and
other deals, and celebrate 100 years of Philippine independence.
Mayor Brown was to continue on to Hanoi.
(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A18)
1998 Feb 6, The Olympic Games
began in Nagano, Japan, and for the first time curling was played as
a medal sport.
(WSJ, 2/6/98, p.A20)
1998 Feb 6, In California Gov.
Wilson declared a state of emergency in 22 counties as El Nino
storms pounded the state.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 6, In Kentucky a 3-day
snow storm left 9 people dead. A record 21 inches fell in
Louisville.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 6, Washington became
the 27th state to ban same-sex marriages.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 6, Carl Wilson (51), a
founding member of The Beach Boys, died in Los Angeles from
complications of lung cancer.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.D8)(AP, 2/7/99)
1998 Feb 6, In Bosnia
government agents arrested Goran Vasic, the suspected gunman of the
1993 murder of deputy prime minister Hakija Turaljic. Serb
hard-liners then seized 2 UN buses, several cars and an unknown
number of Muslim hostages and demanded the release of Vasic.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 6, In Corsica Claude
Erignac, the French governor, was shot a killed by 2 gunmen. In 2003
French police arrested Yvan Colonna for the murder.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A11)(SSFC, 7/6/03, p.A3)
1998 Feb 6, Peru’s Pres.
Fujimori took personal control in Piura to shore up the waters of
the Ica River which burst its banks. Recent weather related deaths
had reached 150. Mudslide damaged parts of the famous Nazca Lines.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A10)(SFC, 2/9/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 6, In Rwanda Hutu
rebels hacked to death 48 civilians in the village of Biyahe in the
Gisenyi region.
(SFC, 2/9/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 6, Saudi Arabia
imposed a ban on livestock imported from Somaliland, allegedly due
to the threat of Rift Valley Fever.
(SFC, 4/15/98, p.C2)
1998 Feb 6, In Sri Lanka a
suicide bomber killed 10 people in Colombo and rebels pressed
attacks on government near Jaffna.
(WSJ, 2/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 7, The Winter Olympic
Games opened in Nagano, Japan.
(AP, 2/7/99)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported
that the Axial Seamount undersea volcano off the coast of the
Pacific Northwest was erupting 5,000 feet below sea level.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported
that the 8,000 Sq. mile Larsen B ice sheet in Antarctica was
breaking up due to rising global temperatures.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported
that over 1200 Hooker’s sea lion pups had died in the sub-Antarctic
islands south of New Zealand from an unknown disease.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, Novelist Lawrence
Sanders died at age 78. His debut thriller "The Anderson Tapes"
launched his career, and his 38th book was due later this month.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D8)
1998 Feb 7, In Australia over
1000 defense force personnel were called to help clean up parts of
the Northern Territory where the worst floods in 40 years
resulted from the overflowing Katherine River.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, Falco (40),
Austrian born pop singer, died while on vacation in an auto crash in
the Dominican Republic. His hits included "Der Kommissar," "Rock Me
Amadeus," and "Vienna Calling."
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.D8)
1998 Feb 8, Olga Danilova of
Russia won the first gold medal of the Nagano Winter Games in
15-kilometer classical cross-country skiing.
(AP, 2/8/99)
1998 Feb 8, In Afghanistan new
tremors killed up to 250 more people as relief workers struggled to
reach the disaster scene.
(SFC, 2/9/98, p.B2)
1998 Feb 8, Greek Cypriots
voted in elections with neither main candidate receiving a necessary
majority. Pres. Glafcos Cleridas (78) will face former foreign
minister George Iacovou on Feb 15.
(SFC, 2/9/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 8, In Iceland Halldor
Laxness (b.1902), novelist and Nobel Prize winner, died at age 95.
His books included "Independent People" (1946), "the Great Weaver of
Cashmere," "Salka Valka," "The Atom Station," and "Paradise
Reclaimed."
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A24)
1998 Feb 8, In Sierra Leone a
jet belonging to West African peacekeepers fired on a tank with a
mounted anti-aircraft gun in Freetown and killed 6 people. Nigerian
led peacekeepers were moving toward Freetown in an effort to drive
the military junta from power.
(SFC, 2/9/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 9, Pres. Clinton
declared 27 counties in California a federal disaster area.
Estimated storm damage reached over $275 million.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 9, The Pentagon
announced that some 3,000 ground troops from Fort Hood, Texas, were
to be sent to the Persian Gulf region over the next 10 days. The
move was to discourage "creative thinking" on the part of Saddam
Hussein of Iraq.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A1)(AP, 2/9/99)
1998 Feb 9, From Georgia it was
reported that Steuart and Jane Dewar were attempting to set up a
Gorilla Haven for retired gorillas in the area of Morgantown on part
of 275 acres they owned in Fannin County. There was substantial
neighbor opposition.
(SFC, 2/9/98, p.A11)
1998 Feb 9, At the Nagano
Games, German Georg Hackl won the men's luge for the third
consecutive Olympics.
(AP, 2/9/99)
1998 Feb 9, In Colombia rebels
blew up the nation’s main oil pipeline spilling 15,000 gallons and
forcing a suspension of pumping. It was the 7th attack on a pipeline
this year.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 9, In Tbilisi,
Georgia, armed attackers ambushed Pres. Shevardnadze (70). One
attacker and one bodyguard were killed.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 9, In Indonesia a
curfew was imposed on the town of Ende after 2 days of riots burned
21 stores owned by the ethnic Chinese, who dominate most of the
businesses.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 9, In Northern Ireland
a Protestant drug dealer, Brendan Campbell (33), and a Protestant
militant, Bobby Dougan (38), were slain in separate incidents.
Police blamed the IRA and a dissident gang.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.B3)
1998 Feb 9, South Korean unions
voted down a pact to make it easier for businesses to lay off
workers. The unions also called for a nationwide strike this week.
The strike was called off.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 9, In Mexico it was
reported that flash floods in Tijuana killed at least 13 people.
(WSJ, 2/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 10, Dr. David Satcher
was confirmed as Surgeon General by the US Senate.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A1)(AP, 2/10/99)
1998 Feb 10, Voters in Maine
repealed a gay rights law. Gov. Angus King called it unfortunate.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A2)(AP, 2/10/99)
1998 Feb 10, Monica Lewinsky's
mother, Marcia Lewis, testified before the grand jury investigating
her daughter's alleged affair with President Clinton.
(AP, 2/10/99)
1998 Feb 10, Speedskater
Hiroyasu Shimizu won Japan's first gold medal of the Nagano
Olympics, in the 500-meter event.
(AP, 2/10/99)
1998 Feb 10, French legislators
approved a reduction in the workweek from 39 to 35 hours.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.B3)
1998 Feb 11, Attorney General
Janet Reno asked for an independent prosecutor to investigate
whether Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt had misled Congress in
connection with an Indian casino controversy; The counsel, Carol
Elder Bruce, found no wrongdoing on Babbitt's part.
(AP, 2/11/03)
1998 Feb 11, KVBC-FM (Las
Vegas) offered Monica Lewinsky $5M for an interview.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1998 Feb 11, Skier Jonny
Moseley won the first U.S. gold medal at Nagano, in men's moguls
freestyle; Picabo Street won the women's super-G. Canadian
snowboarder Ross Rebagliati was stripped of his gold medal after
testing positive for marijuana. His medal was later reinstated.
(AP, 2/11/99)
1998 Feb 11, Ben Cohen,
co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, was named as director of
the Greenpeace environmental group. Greenpeace had an annual
worldwide income of about $160 mil.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.A7)
1998 Feb 11, In Montenegro
former Pres. Momir Bulatovic was indicted with 3 senior aides for
activity against the state during the January riots.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D5)
1998 Feb 11, Russia’s Pres.
Yeltsin completed a 3 day visit to Italy and scored $5 billion in
trade and investment contracts.
(SFC, 2/12/98, p.A14)
1998 Feb 12, US federal
district judge T. Hogan struck down Pres. Clinton's new Line-Item
Veto Act as unconstitutional.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.A3)(AP, 2/12/03)
1998 Feb 12, Intel unveiled its
1st graphics chip, the i740.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1998 Feb 12, NASA planned a
rocket launch from Tortuguero base in Puerto Rico. 10 more rockets
were planned for launch over the next 30 days.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 12, At Nagano,
Norwegian Bjorn Daehlie became the first man to win six Winter
Olympic gold medals, as he placed first in the 10-kilometer
classical cross-country race.
(AP, 2/12/99)
1998 Feb 12, An appeals panel
reinstated Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati's gold medal, a day
after he was stripped of the honor for testing positive for
marijuana.
(AP, 2/12/99)
1998 Feb 12, The Cuban
government announced that over 200 inmates held on political and
other charges would be released.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D2)
1998 Feb 12, In Indonesia Pres.
Suharto ordered the military to move against anti-government
activists. The previous day police detained some 140 protestors in
Jakarta.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D2)
1998 Feb 12, In Italy over 250
cars crashed on the foggy highway A-13 between Padua and Bologna.
Four people were killed and dozens were injured.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D2)
1998 Feb 12, In Sierra Leone
the Nigerian led intervention force captured the country’s State
House in Freetown.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D5)
1998 Feb 12, In Sudan Lt.
Gen’l. Al-Zubeir Mohammad Saleh, the country’s first vice-president,
was killed along with 7 others in a plane crash in the southern
Sudan. Rebels of the SPLA claimed to have shot the plane down.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D5)
1998 Feb 13, Dr. David Satcher
was sworn in as US surgeon general during an Oval Office ceremony.
(AP, 2/13/08)
1998 Feb 13, The United Auto
Workers reached a tentative contract agreement with Caterpillar
Inc.; union members rejected the agreement, which was revised and
later ratified, ending a bitter dispute that lasted more than six
years.
(AP, 2/13/99)
1998 Feb 13, The Dow Jones rose
to another record high of 8,370.1.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.D1)
1998 Feb 13, In Indonesia
rioting and looting spread to at least 8 towns.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 13, In Sierra Leone
Freetown fell to Nigerian led forces. Two helicopter gunships with
some 50 senior members of the military junta were captured near
Monrovia.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 14, The rock musical
"Hedwig and the Angry Inch" opened off Broadway at the Jane Street
Theater. It was written by John Cameron Mitchell.
(SFC, 11/20/02, p.D1)
1998 Feb 14, Authorities
officially declared Eric Rudolph a suspect in the bombing of a
Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic and offered a $100,000 reward.
(AP, 2/14/03)
1998 Feb 14, Hansel Mieth,
photojournalist, died in Santa Rosa at age 88. She and her husband
Otto Hagel began taking photographs in the farmlands and labor camps
of California in the 1930s.
(SFC, 2/17/98, p.B8)
1998 Feb 14, In India the Tamil
Nadu election campaign ended with bombings and riots in Coimbatore.
Some 13 bombs in 11 places took 46 lives.
(SFC, 2/16/98,
p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Coimbatore_bombings)
1998 Feb 14, Russia's Ilya
Kulik won the men's figure skating gold medal at the Nagano
Olympics.
(AP, 2/14/99)
1998 Feb 14, In Britain Lord
Granville of Eye, the oldest member of the British Parliament, died
at age 102. He fought in WW I at Gallipoli and entered Parliament in
1929.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.A18)
1998 Feb 14, In Cameroon a
train hauling oil tanker cars derailed and collided with an oncoming
train outside Yaounde. It exploded and killed up to 100 people.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.A24)
1998 Feb 15, Monica Lewinsky's
attorney, William Ginsburg, continued his harsh criticism of
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr for alleged leaks of information
to the news media, charging on CNN that his client's constitutional
rights were being trampled.
(AP, 2/15/03)
1998 Feb 15, Two Japanese ski
jumpers, Kazuyoshi Funaki and Masahiko Harada, leapt to gold and
bronze medals in the 120-meter event at the Nagano Olympics.
(AP, 2/15/99)
1998 Feb 15, Armed men killed
32 people in 3 weekend attacks. 17 people had their throats slit in
Saida, Algeria.
(SFC, 2/16/98, p.A11)
1998 Feb 15, In Cyprus Pres.
Glafcos Clerides won the elections with a 50.8% margin.
(SFC, 2/16/98, p.A11)
1998 Feb 15, In the Czech
Republic a young Gypsy woman was pushed into the Elbe River by 3
skinheads. Her body was recovered 2 days later. It was the 3rd
attack on Gypsies in 4 weeks. 3 suspects were detained.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.C3)
1998 Feb 16, Mr. Jefferson, the
1st cloned calf, was born in Virginia.
(www.revivicor.com/MrJefferson.htm)
1998 Feb 16, In Afghanistan 27
people died of the cold. Some 30,000 earthquake survivors were sent
24 truckloads of aid by the Taliban.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 16, In Bihar, India,
20 people were killed during the first round of voting.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 16, In China Ren
Chengjian was hauled back to Zhengzhou from the US where he faced
charges of stealing vast sums, $42 million, from state-run banks and
companies.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A14)
1998 Feb 16, Skier Hermann
Maier of Austria won the Super-G and Katja Seizinger of Germany won
the women's downhill at the Nagano Olympics; Russia's Pasha Grishuk
and Yeggeny Platov won the ice dancing event.
(AP, 2/16/08)
1998 Feb 16, In Turkey the
government banned Muslim headwear by female students and teachers at
religious schools. Separately the leadership of the main Kurdish
political party was imprisoned on charges of links to separatist
rebels.
(WSJ, 2/17/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 16, In Taiwan a China
Airlines Airbus A300-600R crashed at Chiang Kai-shek airport while
trying to land in fog. 196 people on board were killed plus 6 on the
ground. The passengers included the governor of Taiwan’s Central
Bank and other financial officials.
(SFC, 2/17/98, p.A6)(AP, 2/16/08)
1998 Feb 17, The U.S. women's
hockey team won the gold medal at Nagano, Japan, defeating Canada
3-1.
(AP, 2/17/99)
1998 Feb 17, President Clinton,
preparing Americans for possible air strikes against Iraq, said
military force is never the first answer "but sometimes it's the
only answer."
(AP, 2/17/99)
1998 Feb 17, A jury in Fort
Worth, Texas, convicted former Naval Academy midshipman Diane Zamora
(20) of killing a 16-year-old romantic rival. Zamora and her
ex-boyfriend, former US Air Force Academy cadet David Graham, were
sentenced to life in prison in the slaying of Adrianne
Jones.
(AP, 2/17/08)
1998 Feb 17, The US government
began an airwave auction to sell rights for 1,150 Mhz chunks of
microwave radio spectrum at 28 gigahertz. The spectrum was expected
to be used in Local Multipoint Distribution Services (LMDS).
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.B1)
1998 Feb 17, UN Sec. Gen’l.
Kofi Annan announced that he would travel to Baghdad to try to
resolve the ongoing crises over Saddam Hussein’s refusal to allow
unconditional weapons inspections.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.C2)
1998 Feb 17, In Detroit a
landlord paid an arsonist (35) a Rottweiler dog for setting a fire
to get rid of a family on her property. The fire killed 4 children.
(SFC, 2/19/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 17, Bob Merrill
(b.1921), composer and lyricist, died from suicide at age 74. His
work included the musicals "Carnival" and "Funny Girl" and the song
"How Much Is That Doggie in the Window."
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-me.htm)
1998 Feb 17, In Belgium a
parliamentary panel found no police complicity in the killings of 4
girls in Charleroi that sparked demonstrations in 1996.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 17, Ernst Juenger,
German writer, died at age 102.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.A18)
1998 Feb 17, In Indonesia Pres.
Suharto fired Soedradjad Djiwandono, the country’s Central Bank
chief.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.C3)
1998 Feb 17, An Iranian crowd
cheered as US wrestlers carried the Stars and Stripes into an
international meet in Tehran.
(AP, 2/17/99)
1998 Feb 17, In Sierra Leone 7
Western relief workers were reported kidnapped.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.C3)
1988 Feb 18, The American
hockey team in Nagano lost to the Czechs. Members of the team that
night trashed their quarters in the Olympic Village, drained a fire
extinguisher and tossed it out their 5th story window.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A1,16)
1998 Feb 18, President
Clinton's foreign policy team encountered jeers during a town
meeting at Ohio State University while trying to defend the
administration's threat to bomb Iraq into compliance with UN weapons
edicts.
(AP, 2/18/99)
1998 Feb 18, A military
helicopter crashed in central California during a training mission
and 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 2/19/98, p.A22)
1998 Feb 18, Harry Caray,
baseball broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs and other teams, died at
age 77. Sportscaster Harry Caray died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at
age 83.
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A1)(AP, 2/18/99)
1998 Feb 19, At the Nagano
Olympics, Austrian Hermann Maier won the men's giant slalom while
Hilde Gerg of Germany won the women's slalom.
(AP, 2/19/99)
1998 Feb 19, Federal officials
in Henderson, Nevada, arrested Larry Wayne Harris and William Job
Leavitt for possession of suspected anthrax bacterium. Harris had
earlier published the 131-page book: "Bacteriological Warfare: A
Major Threat to North America." The substance turned out to be a
harmless veterinary vaccine. Harris was later sentenced to 6 months
probation.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A1,8)(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A11)(SFC,
3/25/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 19, Scientists
reported the discovery of the brain’s hunger hormone. It was named
"orexin" after the Greek word "orexis" meaning hunger.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A11)
1998 Feb 19, In Colombia Jose
Nelson Urrego, aka "El Loco" and the purported head of the so-called
Cartel del Norte del Valle, was arrested.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A14)
1998 Feb 19, In Georgia gunmen
kidnapped 4 UN observers and 6 civilians and demanded the release of
7 suspects held for last week’s assassination attempt on Pres.
Shevardnadze.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 19, In Indonesia 3
Chinese tycoons led by Liem Sioe Liong, the No. 1 individual
taxpayer, started a huge food giveaway to the poor. In Kendari mobs
attacked Chinese-owned shops and homes. In Jakarta some 600 students
demanded that the government quit.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 19, U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan set out for Iraq on a last-chance peace
mission, saying he was "reasonably optimistic" about ending the
standoff over weapons inspections without the use of force.
(AP, 2/19/99)
1998 Feb 19, North Korean
officials sent letters to South Korea offering talks between
political parties and civic groups.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 19, In Pakistan Kanwar
Ahson was arrested in Karachi, a Mohajir-dominated city of 14
million, for having sex outside of marriage with his lover Riffat
Afridi, who was in hiding. The couple were of rival ethnic groups
and the Afridi’s father refused to allow them to marry. They married
last week and set off a riot where 2 people were killed and 8
injured.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A14)
1998 Feb 19, In Switzerland
police arrested 3 Israeli Mossad agents for spying on diplomats in
Bern.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A9)
1998 Feb 20, With the U.S.
military poised to attack Iraq, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
began a final campaign to end the crisis over U.N weapons
inspections without bloodshed.
(AP, 2/20/99)
1998 Feb 20, UN Ambassador Bill
Richardson was shouted down by protestors against the invasion of
Iraq at the Univ. of Minnesota. He abandoned his speech.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 20, The UN Security
Council voted to more than double the amount of oil Iraq may sell to
buy food and medicine. The increase was from $2 bil to $5.256 bil,
although Iraq has said it was only capable of producing $4 billion
worth of oil over six months. With the US military poised to attack
Iraq, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan began a final campaign to end
the crisis over weapons inspections without bloodshed.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)(AP, 2/21/08)
1998 Feb 20, In New York an FBI
sting led to the arrest of 2 Chinese conspiring to arrange
transplants of organs taken from the bodies of executed Chinese
inmates.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 20, In Colombia Army
Major Eduardo Santos Vergara and 3 local police commanders were
arrested for allegedly collaborating with paramilitary death squads
in the north. They were accused of being responsible for the Nov.
murder of Carlos Arturo Quiroz in San Jacinto.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A9)
1998 Feb 20, In the Congo
troops of Pres. Kabila were sent to quell a rebellion by Mai-Mai
tribal warriors. A human rights group, Azadho, later charged the
troops in a massacre of over 300 civilians in Butembo.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.A10)
1998 Feb 20, Tens of thousands
of Croats protested in Zagreb against high unemployment and falling
living standards.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A10)
1998 Feb 20, In Israel
hundreds of Israeli Arabs protested the threatened US strike against
Iraq.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 20, Tara Lipinski of
the U.S. won the ladies' figure skating title at Nagano, becoming at
age 15 the youngest gold medalist in Winter Olympics history;
Michelle Kwan won the silver.
(AP, 2/20/99)
1998 Feb 20, In Jordan a
pro-Iraq march turned violent and one person was killed.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 20, In Northern
Ireland Sinn Fein was suspended from peace talks for 17 days on
condition that it not engage in violence.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 20, In Northern
Ireland a 500-pound bomb in Moira left 11 people injured and wrecked
a police station. It was blamed on the Continuity Army Council, an
IRA splinter group.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A21)
1998 Feb 20, In New Zealand a
4th power cable failed in Auckland and the city was left without
power. Full service was not expected until Mar 9.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A7)
1998 Feb 20, In Sierra Leone
former pres. Joseph Momoh was caught while trying to escape the
capital under disguise as a woman. He was alleged to be a close
advisor to the junta that ousted Pres. Kabbah.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A9)
1998 Feb 21, U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan began formal talks with Iraqi officials in the
standoff over weapons inspections.
(AP, 2/21/99)
1998 Feb 21, Julian Bond was
elected chairman of the 64-member board of the NAACP.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 21, In India the
governor in Uttar Pradesh state ousted the Hindu nationalist
government and protests followed. The government was restored by a
court a few days later.
(WSJ, 2/24/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 21, In Pakistan two
Iranian engineers were killed in "sectarian violence."
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.T14)
1998 Feb 22, Revival of "King
& I," closed at Neil Simon Theater in NYC after 781
performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4673)
1998 Feb 22, In Chicago Louis
Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, spoke before a crowd of
10,000 at McCormick Place. The speech capped a weekend celebration
of the birth of founder W.D. Fard Muhammad. Farrakhan had recently
completed a 37-nation world tour.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A6)
1998 Feb 22, In Peoria, Ill.,
United Auto Workers rejected a new contract with Caterpillar Inc.
The dispute was into its 6th year.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A2)
1998 Feb 22, Abraham A.
Ribicoff, the former Connecticut governor and senator who served as
President Kennedy's secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, died
in Riverdale, N.Y., at age 87.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A5) (AP, 2/22/99)
1998 Feb 22, In Rio de Janeiro
the Palace II, built by Sergio Naya, collapsed during Carnival and 8
people were crushed. The building was built by a construction
company owned by federal deputy Sergio Naya of the Brazilian
Progress Party. Faulty construction was uncovered.
(FT, 3/4/98, p.6)(SFC, 7/8/99,
p.A17)(www.novomilenio.inf.br/humor/0105f002.htm)
1998 Feb 22, The Czech Republic
defeated Russia 1-0 to win men's hockey as the Nagano Winter
Olympics came to a close.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20) (AP, 2/22/99)
1998 Feb 22, In Chechnya
guerrilla leader Salman Raduyev announced a reconciliation with the
Chechen leadership.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 22, In India clashes
during voting left 12 dead and over 40 injured across the country.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 22, In Indonesia the
government banned rallies until mid-March. Government troops last
week killed 5 people and arrested 921 others during riots.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 22, In Iraq UN
Sec.-Gen’l. Kofi Annan managed to secure an agreement from Saddam
Hussein to allow the inspection process to proceed.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 22, In Sri Lanka rebel
gunboats attacked a 12-ship convoy carrying soldiers to northern Sri
Lanka. Up to 70 people were killed when 2 vessels were sunk. Rebel
casualties were estimated at 30. At least 6 of the 25 rebel boats
were destroyed.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 23, President Clinton
gave cautious approval to a U.N. agreement reached by
Secretary-General Kofi Annan with Saddam Hussein for monitoring
suspected weapons sites in Iraq.
(AP, 2/23/99)
1998 Feb 23, The California
State Supreme Court ruled that anybody can sue a corner store or gas
station for selling cigarettes to minors.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A22)
1998 Feb 23, In Florida 6-10
tornadoes killed forty-two people. Some 2,600 homes and businesses
damaged or destroyed, by tornadoes in Seminole, Osceola, Orange,
Brevard and Volusia counties Florida.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/24/98, p.A1) (AP,
2/23/99)
1998 Feb 23, In Afghanistan
Osama bin Laden declared a holy war on the US. Bin Laden announced
the formation of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and
Crusaders. It called on Muslims worldwide to attack Americans. The
Al Quds Al-Arabi newspaper published a statement that announced an
alliance between Dr. Zawahri, head of the Egyptian Jihad, and Osama
bin Laden. "We—with God’s help—call on every Muslim…to comply with
God’s order to kill Americans."
(WSJ, 4/2/02, p.A18)(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.A8)(SFC,
2/22/00, p.A8)
1998 Feb 23, A bomb exploded
under a passing train near El Affroune, Algeria. Ten people were
killed and 25 injured.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Feb 23, In Colombia Pres.
Samper denied his weekend offer to resign in order to improve
relations with the US.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 23, In India in Andhra
Pradesh state leftist guerrillas set off a mine that killed 5
soldiers sent to guard polling stations.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 23, In Northern
Ireland a bomb leveled 2 buildings in Portadown. The Continuity IRA
was suspected in the blast that started a fire and damaged roofs and
windows across the town.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 23, South Korea’s
Pres.-elect Kim Dae Jung named Kim Jong Pil, founder of the Korea
Central Intelligence Agency, as prime minister.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 24, It was reported
that German researchers used human fibroblast growth factor, FGF-1,
to grow new blood vessels around clogged coronary arteries.
(WSJ, 2/24/98, p.B1)
1998 Feb 24, Henny Youngman
died in New York City at age 91-92. He was a tireless comic who
quipped "Take my wife -- please" and countless other one-liners
during a career that spanned seven decades.
(SFC, 2/25/98, p.C2)(AP, 2/24/99)
1998 Feb 24, In Colombia Victor
Manuel Carranza, aka the "Emerald King," was arrested near Bogota on
charges of financing right-wing paramilitary death squads.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A9)
1998 Feb 24, In Germany 6
service-sector unions agreed to merge by year 2000 to create the
world’s largest union with 4 million members.
(WSJ, 2/25/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 24, In Israel Mossad
chief Danny Yatom resigned over the agency’s botched attempt to
poison a Hamas leader in Jordan on Sep 25.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.D2)
1998 Feb 24, In Turkey the
former Welfare Party changed its name to the Virtue Party and
elected Recai Kutan as leader. Separately university students
protested a ban on Islamic dress.
(WSJ, 2/25/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 25, At the Grammy
Awards, Bob Dylan won best album and best contemporary folk album
for "Time Out of Mind" while Shawn Colvin won song and record of the
year for "Sunny Came Home."
(AP, 2/25/99)
1998 Feb 25, The US Supreme
Court threw out a 16-year-old government rule that allowed company
credit unions to accept members from other companies.
(AP, 2/25/99)
1998 Feb 25, The US Congress
for the first time reversed Pres. Clinton’s line item veto and
restored 38 military projects.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 25, In Georgia the UN
prisoners were freed and the leader of the kidnapping group escaped.
(WSJ, 2/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 25, Harlan H. Hatcher,
President Emeritus of the Univ. of Mich., died at age 99. He wrote
several books on the history of the Great Lakes region.
(MT, Sum. ‘98, p.6)
1998 Feb 25, From Peru it was
reported that the country was abandoning its campaign of sterilizing
women.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 25, In South Korea
Pres. Kim Dae Jung, once South Korea's leading dissident,
began his office. His political opposition blocked his choice for
prime minister.
(WSJ, 2/23/98, p.A1)(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A7)(AP,
2/25/99)
1998 Feb 25, In Sierra Leone Bo
was captured by Nigerian-led peacekeeping troops. The city was
reported badly damaged with many dead.
(WSJ, 2/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 25, In Switzerland the
first legal brothel opened in Zurich.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A13)
1998 Feb 26, A jury in
Amarillo, Texas, rejected an $11 million lawsuit brought by Texas
cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey's talk show for a price fall
after a segment on food safety that included a discussion about
mad-cow disease.
(AP, 2/26/99)
1998 Feb 26, The US waived the
2-year-old sanctions against Colombia. Military and economic aid
were expected to follow.
(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 26, The US certified
Mexico as a fully cooperating partner in the war on drugs.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A18)
1998 Feb 26, Azerbaijan accused
Armenia of launching fresh attacks over the disputed
Nagorno-Karabakh.
(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 26, Three Israeli
soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah attack in southern Lebanon.
(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 26, Near Tokyo 3
businessmen hanged themselves in a suburban hotel due to
economic difficulties and the resulting loss of face.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.D4)
1998 Feb 27, FBI arrested
suspected serial killer Tony Ray Amati, their 10th most wanted.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1998 Feb 27, The journal
Science reported that scientists suspected an unknown "repulsive
force" to be acting against gravity and speeding the expansion of
the universe.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 27, Jack Micheline
(born as Harvey Martin Silver in NY), Bohemian poet, died at 68 of a
heart attack on a BART train between SF and Orinda. His first book
of poetry was "River of Red Wine," and his last was "Sixty Seven
Poems for Downtrodden Saints."
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.D8)
1998 Feb 27, With the approval
of Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's House of Lords agreed to end 1,000
years of male preference by giving a monarch's first-born daughter
the same claim to the throne as any first-born son.
(AP, 2/27/99)
1998 Feb 27, The World Court
ruled that it has the authority to decide on the location of a trial
for the 2 Libyans accused of blowing up a jet over Lockerbie,
Scotland in 1988.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A10)
1998 Feb 27, From Indonesia it
was reported that hundreds of fires were burning in Kalimantan,
Borneo. Most were set by loggers and small farmers. Drought was
fueling the fires and already 34,600 acres were destroyed this year.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.D2)
1998 Feb 28, In weekly radio
addresses, President Clinton and Republicans sparred over education,
with Clinton describing tests showing American high school students
lagging behind those of other industrial nations as a "wake-up call"
while the Republicans blamed the disappointing results on a "hungry
bureaucracy in Washington" that gobbles up education funds.
(AP, 2/28/99)
1998 Feb 28, Albert Lippert,
co-founder of the Weight Watchers diet program, died at age 72.
(SFC, 3/4/98, p.C4)
1998 Feb 28, India’s elections
came to a close. The BJP built its campaign around candidate for
prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (71). The Congress Party was led
by Sonia Gandhi. Jayalalitha Jayaram led the All India Anna Dravida
Munetra Kazhagam party in Tamil Nadu won 18 seats in parliament.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.A18)
1998 Feb 28, In Likoshan two
Serbian police officers were killed. Police blamed the Kosovo
Liberation Army. The Serbian SAJ, an anti-terrorist unit, was
immediately called to the scene and rounded up 10 males who were
summarily shot. Another 15 villagers were also killed.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb, Wired reported that
Sony and Fujifilm developed a floppy disk that reads and writes to a
200-Mbyte, 3.5-inch disk and is backwards compatibles to current
floppies.
(Wired, 2/98, p.108)
1998 Feb, Eduardo Eurnakian
(65), head of a billion dollar media empire, won a 30-year
concession to run 33 of Argentina’s main airports.
(WSJ, 2/24/98, p.A18)
1998 Feb, In Bangladesh the war
between the 13 tribes in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the central
government ended after 22 years of fighting. Warriors began turning
in their weapons and lump sum payments were to be made to rebels.
The tribes were Buddhist Southeast Asian peoples with their own
languages. Their struggle was with Bengali-speaking intruders of
Indo-Aryan and Muslim background.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb, In Belgium Noel Godin
inspired a group of followers to cast a cream tart onto the face of
Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft Corp.
(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A10)
1998 Feb, Abbas Janabi (50), a
former journalist and personal secretary to Odai Hussein (34),
defected from Iraq and went into hiding in Europe. Janabi later
corroborated reports that Odai was responsible for extensive oil
smuggling along with other material goods.
(SFC, 10/21/98, p.C2)(http://tinyurl.com/9wsfz)
1998 Feb, In Guadalajara,
Mexico, Moises Padilla (33) was kidnapped and tortured with knives.
He was left naked and bleeding with 68 wounds and told to "Stop
saying bad things about the Servant of God." Padilla was a principal
witness in charges against Samuel Joaquin Flores and his evangelical
group the Light of the World."
(SFC, 2/19/98, p.A8,10)
1998 Feb, Iran began to close
down shipments of illicit Iraqi oil.
(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 1, "Art" opened at
Royale Theater NYC.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1998 Mar 1, Burma’s military
regime arrested 40 people it accused of planning to assassinate
leaders and bomb buildings.
(WSJ, 3/2/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 1, China pledged to
spend $32.6 billion to stabilize nearly insolvent state banks amid
the Asian financial crises.
(WSJ, 1/4/99, p.R4)
1998 Mar 1, In Germany, Lower
Saxony Governor Gerhard Schroeder won a sweeping re-election that
paved the way for his successful campaign to oust Chancellor Helmut
Kohl.
(AP, 3/1/99)
1998 Mar 1, Weekend clashes in
Kosovo left 24 ethnic Albanians and 4 Serb policemen dead. Police
arrested 5 people and seized weapons caches.
(WSJ, 3/2/98, p.A1)(FT, 3/4/98, p.1)
1998 Mar 2, Henry Steele
Commager (b.1902), American historian and champion of the
Constitution, died in Amherst, Mass. He and R.B. Morris edited the
40-volume series "The Rise of the American Nation."
(WSJ, 3/3/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/3/98, p.D8)
1998 Mar 2, Natascha Kampusch
(10) vanished in Vienna, Austria, on her way to school, triggering a
massive search that extended into neighboring Hungary. In 2006
Kampusch, who had been held captive in a cellar, managed to escape.
Wolfgang Priklopil (44), her alleged abductor, committed suicide by
jumping in front of a train. In 2007 Natascha’s mother, Brigitta
Sirny authored: "Desperate Years: My life Without Natascha." In 2008
Herwig Haidinger, the former head of Austria's Federal Criminal
Investigations Bureau, accused authorities of ignoring a tip in
April 1998 from a local policeman that pointed to Priklopil. He also
alleged that Interior Ministry officials refused to look into that
accusation once Kampusch reappeared, so to avoid a scandal before
parliamentary elections that fall.
(AP, 8/24/06)(AP, 8/8/07)(AP, 2/11/08)
1998 Mar 2, U.N. Security
Council unanimously endorsed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's deal to
open Iraq's presidential palaces to arms inspectors.
(AP, 3/299)
1998 Mar 2, Serb police clashed
with 30,000 protesting Albanians in Kosovo.
(WSJ, 3/3/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 2-3, Rebels of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia said that some 70 government
soldiers were killed near the Caguan River. The bodies of 58 were
later recovered. Forty soldiers were rescued and 27 were captured.
The fate of 28 was unknown.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 3/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 3, Presidential
confidant Vernon Jordan testified before the grand jury
investigating the Monica Lewinsky matter.
(AP, 3/3/99)
1998 Mar 3, It was reported
that the US had slashed aid to fight drugs in Bolivia by 75% or some
$34 million. Aid in 1997 was $46 million. The allocation was partly
shifted to Colombia.
(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 3, Microsoft chairman
Bill Gates testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that his
company wasn't a monopoly out to crush rivals in the Internet
software market.
(AP, 3/3/99)
1998 Mar 3, The US Supreme
Court ruled that local lawmakers' votes are immune to lawsuits even
if they had been based on illegal or discriminatory motives.
(AP, 3/3/99)
1998 Mar 3, Larry Doby (d.2003
at 79), the first black player in the American League (1947), was
elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
(AP, 3/3/99)(WSJ, 6/20/03, p.A1)
1998 Mar 3, Former CBS News
president Fred W. Friendly died in New York at age 82.
(AP, 3/3/99)
1998 Mar 3, Dr. Hans J.
Muller-Eberhard, one of the first scientists to explain the
importance of the complement system, died in Houston. He showed that
front line attack of the immune system was a complex of about 20
separate protein molecules that together attacked cells through a
series of reactions referred to as a cascade.
(SFC, 3/8/98, p.C5)
1998 Mar 3, In Germany over
130,000 public sector workers stopped work. The 2nd walkout in 2
days was for a 4.5% increase in pay.
(SFC, 3/4/98, p.C4)
1998 Mar 3, In India the BJP
with regional allies emerged as the largest grouping from the
general election. It was still 20 seats short of a governing
majority in the 543-seat parliament.
(FT, 3/4/98, p.1)
1998 Mar 3, In Mexico Senator
Layda Sansores discovered a government spy center in Campeche. 22
similar operations throughout the country were indicated by the
records found.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 3, In Northern Ireland
Damien Trainor (25) and Phillip Allen (34) were shot and killed by
sectarian gunmen in the Railway Bar in Poyntzpass. Three others were
wounded.
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 3, In Kosovo, Serbia,
a mass funeral of 30,000 was held for 24 ethnic Albanians killed Feb
28.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 3, In Zimbabwe a
strike over soaring taxes and food prices left 80% of the nation’s
workers at home.
(SFC, 3/4/98, p.C4)
1998 Mar 4, The US Supreme
Court ruled that sexual harassment at work can be illegal even when
the offender and victim are of the same gender.
(WSJ, 1/4/99, p.R4)(AP, 3/4/99)
1998 Mar 4, The US House
approved a special referendum in Puerto Rico that would allow voters
to choose one of 3 options: continued commonwealth status, statehood
or independence.
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 4, A judge ordered
Miami to hold a new mayoral election, saying widespread
absentee-ballot fraud played a role in the victory of Xavier Suarez
the previous fall.
(AP, 3/4/99)
1998 Mar 5, Details of
President Clinton's deposition testimony in the Paula Jones sexual
harassment case against him were published in The Washington Post,
prompting an angry denunciation from the president for the news
leak.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1998 Mar 5, NASA officials
announced that the Lunar Prospector probe found the presence of
water on the moon at the north and south poles. As much as 100
million tons of water was estimated. They said that the water frozen
in the loose soil of the moon might support a lunar base and a human
colony.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/6/98, p.A1)(AP,
3/5/99)
1998 Mar 5, In a speech by
Premier Li Peng it was announced that China planned to eliminate 11
ministries and lay off as many as 4 million bureaucrats. The plan
was developed by economic chief Zhu Rongji, who was expected to
replace Li Peng.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 5, In Japan
prosecutors raided the Finance Ministry and later arrested 2
officials, Takashi Sakakibara and Toshio Miyano for accepting bribes
in exchange for approving new financial products.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 5, In Chiapas, Mexico,
46 prison inmates escaped after a labor group of taxi drivers
marched into the Ocosingo jail in a protest demanding the release of
some inmates and the withdrawal of government troops.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A13)
1998 Mar 5, Serbian police
mounted a counterinsurgency operation and killed 20 ethnic Albanians
in the Drenica region of Kosovo.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A13)
1998 Mar 5, In Colombo, Sri
Lanka, a bus bomb with at least 2 shrapnel-laden bombs killed at
least 32 people and injured over 300.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 6, It was reported
that the conservative Tax Foundation estimated that the state of
Mississippi received $1.64 for a $1.00 it sent to Washington.
(WSJ, 3/6/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 6, The US Army honored
three Americans who risked their lives and turned their weapons on
fellow soldiers to stop the slaughter of Vietnamese villagers at My
Lai in 1968.
(AP, 3/6/99)
1998 Mar 6, Matthew Beck (35),
a Connecticut state lottery accountant, shot to death three
supervisors and the lottery chief before killing himself.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.A3)(AP, 3/6/99)
1998 Mar 6, It was reported
that Panama hired a Canadian Indian tribe, the Tsuu T’ina, to clean
out unexploded bombs and shells from an area of Empire Range, which
US military forces abandoned.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 6, The IMF announced
that it would delay the release of $3 billion in aid to Indonesia
because basic requirements were not yet met.
(SFC, 3/9/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 6, Francesca Trombino,
lawyer, was bludgeoned to death in Pordenone, Italy. She was
representing a US Marine in the Feb 3 cable-car disaster. She was
also representing the wife of the captured suspect in a divorce
case.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.A7)
1998 Mar 6, Police in Kosovo
reported that they killed Adem Jashari, a leader in the Kosovo
Liberation Army, in Donji Prekaz in the Drenica region. 45 Albanians
and 6 Serb police were reported dead. Of the 46 bodies 11 were women
and 9 children. six of the men were elderly.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.A6)(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 7, Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, speaking in Rome, said the United States
wouldn't tolerate any more violence in Kosovo, which she blamed on
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 3/7/99)
1998 Mar 8, James McDougal, one
of the most important cooperating witnesses in Kenneth Starr's
Whitewater investigation, died of cardiac arrest in a federal
medical prison in Fort Worth, Texas, at age 57.
(SFC, 3/9/98, p.A1) (AP, 3/8/99)
1998 Mar 8, More than a foot of
wind-driven snow paralyzed travel across the central Plains and
Midwest.
(AP, 3/8/99)
1998 Mar 8, Hall of Fame
linebacker Ray Nitschke died in Florida at age 61.
(AP, 3/8/99)
1998 Mar 8, In northern
Afghanistan an avalanche crushed the village of Darbandi and killed
70 people.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 8, In Algeria
attackers slit the throats of 6 people on a farm in Haouch Mena,
near the home village of Antar Zouabri, believed to be the leader of
the militant Armed Islamic Group.
(SFC, 3/9/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 8, Colombia elected
new representatives to Congress. Rebels interference forced vote
cancellations in 46 municipalities. 8 guerrillas and 7 soldiers were
reported killed in combat.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 8, In Israel a letter
from over 1,500 Israeli army reserve officers urged Pres. Netanyahu
to curb settlements and reach a West Bank deal with Palestinians.
(WSJ, 3/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 8, In Kosovo 7,000
Albanian women marched against the crackdown on separatist
guerrillas.
(SFC, 3/9/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 9, In a case pitting
former high school sweethearts against each other, Brian Peterson
pleaded guilty in Wilmington, Del., to manslaughter in the death of
his newborn son in a Newark, N.J., motel and agreed to testify
against the mother, Amy Grossberg. A month later, Grossberg also
pleaded guilty to manslaughter; she ended up serving nearly two
years of a 2 1/2-year sentence; Peterson served 1 1/2 years of a
two-year sentence.
(AP, 3/9/08)
1998 Mar 9, It was reported
that the government owned the fastest computer, an Intel ASCI Red
unit at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque. It was designed to
perform 1.5 trillion operations per second. It was planned to
develop computers capable of 30 trillion calculations per second by
2001, and 100 trillion per second by 2004.
(SFC, 3/9/98, p.A7)
1998 Mar 9, A vast storm caused
deadly flooding in the US South and heavy snows in the Midwest. In
Elba, Alabama, the Pea River broke its levee and put the town under
5 feet of water. The death toll rose to 8 after 3 days of storms.
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 9, In Israel soldiers
at a checkpoint killed 3 Palestinian laborers in a van near Hebron.
Two soldiers involved were arrested.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 9, In Paraguay a
military tribunal sentenced Lino Oviedo to 10 years in jail for
leading an attempted coup in 1996 and for insulting Pres. Wasmosy in
1997.
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 9, An arms embargo was
imposed on Yugoslavia by the US, Britain and other powers. It lasted
until Sep 2001.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)(SFC, 7/2/02, p.A6)
1998 Mar 10, U.S. Air Force and
Navy personnel in the Persian Gulf received vaccinations against
anthrax. In 2004 a federal judge ordered a halt to anthrax
vaccinations and ruled that the FDA had violated its own rules by
approving the vaccine in 2003.
(AP, 3/10/99)(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A4)
1998 Mar 10, In Alabama a
teenager killed his parents with an ax and a sledgehammer. Jeffery
Franklin (17) also wounded 3 siblings and led police on a "wild car
chase" before being captured.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 10, In South Carolina
the FBI received a videotape made by Daniel Rudolph, brother of
abortion clinic bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph, in which he
amputated his left hand with a circular saw.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 10, Lloyd Bridges,
actor, died at 85 in Westwood, Calif. He played in over 100 movies
and starred in the 1957-1961 TV series Sea Hunt.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A4)(AP, 3/10/99)
1998 Mar 10, In India 6
Tibetans in New Delhi, aged 28-70, began a hunger strike to force
the UN to address Tibet’s dispute with China.
(SFC, 4/15/98, p.C2)
1998 Mar 10, In Indonesia Pres.
Suharto was re-elected by acclamation of the People’s Consultative
Assembly to his 7th 5-year term.
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 10, In Kosovo Serbian
police seized the bodies of 51 ethnic Albanians, killed in a sweep
of separatists, and buried them into bulldozed over graves.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 10, In Northern
Ireland guerrillas launched 2 mortar bombs at a police station in
Armagh.
(SFC, 3/9/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 11, It was announced
that the David and Lucille Packard Foundation would give $175
million over 5 years to protect the California landscape from
over-development.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A13)
1998 Mar 11, A Florida appeals
court restored Joe Carollo as mayor of Miami after charges of voter
fraud on absentee ballots.
(AP, 3/11/99)
1998 Mar 11, The International
Astronomical Union issued an alert, saying a mile-wide asteroid
could zip very close to Earth on Oct. 26, 2028, possibly colliding
with it. But the next day, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said
there was no chance the asteroid will hit Earth.
(AP, 3/11/99)
1998 Mar 11, In Los Angeles
Efren Saldivar, a respiratory care therapist, claimed to have killed
as many as 50 terminally ill patients from 1989 to 1997 at the
Glendale Adventist medical Center. He later recanted his confession.
Exhumations to verify the claims began Apr 30. In 2001 Saldivar was
arrested for the murder of 6 patients whose remains indicated that
they were murdered. In 2002 Saldivar pleaded guilty to murdering 6
patients.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.C7)(SFC,
1/10/01, p.A5)(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A7)
1998 Mar 11, In Chile Gen’l.
Pinochet could not be removed as head of the army until this date.
His successor would be chosen by Pres. Eduardo Frei from 5 generals
proposed by Pinochet. He had agreed to resign on condition that he
be allowed to assume a Senate seat. Pinochet stepped down and was
replaced by Patricio Aylwin.
(SFC, 12/9/96, p.A18)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A11)(SFC,
3/25/99, p.A3)
1998 Mar 11, In Japan the Tokyo
Public Prosecutor’s Office raided the offices of the Bank of Japan.
Yasayuki Yoshizawa, director of the capital markets division, was
arrested on suspicion of leaking market moving information.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 11, In Moscow Marino
Yarovov (43) was boiled to death when she fell into a sinkhole of
muddy, boiling water, created from leaking underground hot water
pipes run by Mosenergo. A 10-year old boy died similarly 6 weeks
previously. His father, who tried to rescue him, died 11 days later
from severe burns.
(SFC, 4/8/98, p.A14)
1998 Mar 12, The US Senate
passed the ISTEA legislation, a $214 billion, 6-year bill called the
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act.
(SFC, 3/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 12, The government
reported the rate of new cancer cases among Americans had inched
down for the first time; so 70,000 fewer people than expected were
diagnosed between 1992 and 1995.
(AP, 3/12/99)
1998 Mar 12, Beatrice Wood,
ceramicist, died at age 105. She was called "Mama of Dada" for her
liaisons with Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roche and others
associated with the Dada movement of the early 20th century. A 1993
documentary was made titled: "Beatrice Wood: The Mama of Dada."
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A19)
1998 Mar 12, Manuel Pineiro
(b.1934), the leader of Cuba’s intelligence apparatus, died in a car
crash at age 63.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A19)
1998 Mar 12, China agree to
sign a UN pact on civil and political rights.
(WSJ, 3/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 12, In Indonesia
students continued protests against Suharto and violent clashes with
police broke out in Surabaya.
(WSJ, 3/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 12, A 22-part
documentary on Israel’s 50-year history was being shown by state
television. Rightwing politicians complained that it was too
sympathetic to the Palestinians.
(SFC, 3/13/98, p.A13)
1998 Mar 12, In Japan Yoshio
Sugiyama (46), a Finance Ministry official, hanged himself following
a widening investigation in corruption.
(SFC, 3/13/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 12, Serbian leaders
proposed talks for autonomy in Kosovo, but residents dismissed the
offer.
(SFC, 3/13/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 13, US Sergeant Major
Gene McKinney (47), once the Army's top enlisted man, was
cleared on 18 of 19 charges brought against him by women who said he
pressured them for sex. He was convicted for obstruction of justice
for trying to persuade his chief accuser to lie. McKinney was
reprimanded and demoted by one rank.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A1)(AP,
3/13/99)
1998 Mar 13, U.S. Rep. Joseph
P. Kennedy II, D-Mass., announced he would not seek a seventh term.
(AP, 3/13/99)
1998 Mar 13, Canada legalized
the growing of industrial hemp.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 13, Israeli and
Palestinian troops made a joint effort to end four days of protests
over the killing of West Bank workers.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 13, In South Korea
Pres. Kim Dae-Jung approved an amnesty that cleared the records of
5.5 million Koreans and freed scores of political prisoners. He also
planned to release 2,300 prison inmates who spent over 2 decades in
jail for supporting North Korea.
(SFC, 3/13/98, p.A14)
1998 Mar 13, In Kosovo 40,000
ethnic Albanians protested against Serbia.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 14, India's Congress
party picked Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of assassinated
prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, as its new president.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/14/99)
1998 Mar 14, In Iran a 6.4
earthquake hit in the southeast and at least 5 people were killed
and thousands left homeless.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.A22)(AP, 3/14/99)
1998 Mar 15, CBS' "60 Minutes"
aired an interview with former White House employee Kathleen Willey,
who said President Clinton had made unwelcome sexual advances toward
her in the Oval Office in 1993, a charge denied by the president.
(AP, 3/15/99)
1998 Mar 15, Dr. Benjamin Spock
(b.1903), whose child care guidance spanned half a century, died in
San Diego at 94. He was the author of the 1946 "Common Sense Book of
Baby and Child Care."
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.A5)(AP, 3/15/99)
1998 Mar 15, Random drug
testing at all Malaysian schools was to be instituted with urine
testing equipment.
(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 16, Sgt. Maj. Gene
McKinney, once the Army's top enlisted man, was reprimanded and
demoted one rank by a jury that had convicted him of obstruction of
justice in a sexual misconduct case.
(AP, 3/16/08)
1998 Mar 16, In Armenia
elections for president were held and the voting was marred by
fraud. Prime Minister Robert Kocharian led the vote over former
Communist boss Karen Demirchian, but failed to get a majority and a
runoff was planned for Mar 30.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.B3)(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 16, Zhu Rongji was
chosen by the National People’s Congress as Premier to replace Li
Peng, who served his limit of two 5-year terms. Hu Jintao (55) was
appointed vice-president, the youngest in modern Chinese history to
that post.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.A9)(WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 16, In Northern
Ireland David Keys (26), one of the jailed suspects in the Mar 3
murders, was found hanged in his cell at Maze Prison. His death was
violent and considered a murder.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 16, A 2nd negotiating
session between North and South Korea will be held under the
guidance of the US and China.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A18)
1998 Mar 16, In a long-awaited
document promised by the Vatican on Sep. 1, 1987, that Jewish
leaders immediately criticized, the Vatican expressed remorse for
the cowardice of some Christians during the Holocaust, but defended
the actions of Pope Pius XII.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.A24)(AP, 3/16/99)
1998 Mar 17, In Alaska Jeff
King battled through blowing snow and poor visibility to earn his
third victory in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
(AP, 3/17/08)
1998 Mar 17, In Mississippi
after a 21-year court fight the state unsealed over 124,000 pages of
secret files of the State Sovereignty Commission that revealed
numerous illegal methods to thwart the civil rights workers of the
‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
(SFC, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 17, Washington Mutual
announced it had agreed to buy H.F. Ahmanson and Co. for $9.9
billion dollars, creating the nation's seventh-largest banking
company.
(AP, 3/17/99)
1998 Mar 17, In Texas Joe
Collins (64) was killed during a break-in at his home outside
Nagadoches. In 2009 Khristian Oliver (32) was executed for beating
and shooting Collins.
(www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D9BPMCQO0.html)
1998 Mar 17, From Brazil it was
reported that a 3-month-old fire was raging out of control in the
state of Roraima, home of the Yanomani Indians.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 17, More than 10,000
Catholics marched in the first-ever St. Patrick’s Day parade in
Belfast.
(SFC, 3/18/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 17, In Zambia the
state of emergency imposed last Oct. was lifted.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 18, Julie Hiatt
Steele, a former friend of Kathleen Willey's, released a sworn
affidavit undercutting Willey's claim that President Clinton had
made an unwanted sexual advance toward her in 1993. According to
Steele, Willey instructed her to tell Newsweek that Willey had
confided the alleged episode to her immediately after it supposedly
happened; Steele said she first heard about the accusation in 1997.
(AP, 3/18/08)
1998 Mar 18, The NYC Board of
Education voted to require its schoolchildren to wear uniforms. The
dress code would begin in 1999.
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 18, A study of Finnish
smokers reported in the Journal of the national Cancer Institute
indicated that vitamin E reduced the risk of prostate cancer.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 18, In India the
Bharatiya Janata Party agenda was outlined. It included plans to
protect domestic industry from foreign competition and to develop
nuclear weapons for protection against China and Pakistan.
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 19, Pres. Clinton
eased US restrictions on humanitarian aid and travel to Cuba.
Cuban-American households would be allowed to send back $1,200 a
year.
(WSJ, 3/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 19, Completing
baseball's transformation from family ownership to corporate
control, Rupert Murdoch's Fox Group won approval to buy the Los
Angeles Dodgers for a record $350 million. News Corporation later
sold the Dodgers to Boston real estate developer Frank McCourt.
(AP, 3/19/08)
1998 Mar 19, A new product was
approved by the FDA to reduce salmonella in chickens. Preempt or
CF-3 was a mixture of beneficial microbes that would be sprayed onto
newly hatched chicks, and then ingested by the chicks to prevent
salmonella growth.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A4)
1998 Mar 19, In Vermont a bomb
exploded in a teenager’s bedroom. Christopher Marquis (17) was
killed and his mother was injured. A package bomb was suspected.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 19, Two small planes
collided over Riverside Ct. in California and 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 19, In Afghanistan a
Boeing 727 operated by Ariana state airline crashed 12 miles south
of Kabul and killed all 22 people on board.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A16)
1998 Mar 19, In Italy suspected
mafia member Giuseppe Magaddino was shot and killed. Sicilian Mafia
member Claudio Adriano Giusto was later charged with killing
Magaddino using a 7.65 mm firearm and then taking his wallet. Giusto
was arrested in Spain in 2011 after 13 years on the run.
(AFP, 4/20/11)(http://tinyurl.com/3za9prm)
1998 Mar 19, Russian security
officials reported that 2 young US Mormon missionaries were
kidnapped in the Volga region of Saratov. The missionaries were
released after 3 days with no ransom paid.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A12)(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 19, In Serbia Pres.
Milosevic agreed to pull back special police in Kosovo under a
deadline by world powers.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 19, In South Africa
hundreds of black demonstrators clashed with police as they marched
on the Vryburg High School. Some 2,500 residents of Huhudi township
marched in support of the students who said they no longer feel safe
at school. A later investigation revealed that the 140 black
students were isolated from the 750 white students in classrooms and
facilities.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A18)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 19-25, CeBIT, the
world’s largest exhibition for information and communications, was
held in Hanover, Germany. 600,000 visitors were expected.
(FT, 3/4/98, p.IT4)
1998 Mar 20, President
Clinton's lawyer, appearing before a federal court, declared that
Paula Jones' evidence of sexual harassment was "garbage" unworthy of
a trial.
(AP, 3/20/99)
1998 Mar 20, The Wall Street
Journal published its first Friday cultural section, "Weekend
Journal."
(WSJ, 3/20/98, p.W1)
1998 Mar 20, George Tenet,
director of the CIA, disclosed that $26.7 billion was the 1998
budget secret intelligence activities, one-tenth the overall US
military budget.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A4)
1998 Mar 20, An Indiana man,
Chris Dean (35), was arrested for sending the pipe bomb that killed
Christopher Marquis of Vermont. Marquis had defrauded Dean in a $400
trade of Citizens Band radio equipment arranged on the Internet.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 20, A twister killed
11 people in northeast Georgia and 2 people in North Carolina and
injured 100.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A1)(AP, 3/20/99)
1998 Mar 20, At least 400
firefighters were sent to fight the fires in the northern Amazon.
Firefighters from Argentina and Venezuela were also brought in. A UN
offer of assistance was accepted Mar 23 to combat thousands of fires
raging out of control.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/23/98, p.A1)(SFC,
3/25/98, p.C14)
1998 Mar 20, In Germany
thousands of protestors attempted to halt a train of atomic waste
from southern Germany from reaching its final destination of Ahaus
in northern Germany.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 20, In Mexico a new
law, the Nationality Act, went into effect that allowed Mexican-born
Americans and their children to hold Mexican nationality and US
citizenship. The law permitted dual nationality but not dual
citizenship.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 21, Six members of the
SF-based Peaceworkers group were arrested and sentenced to 10 days
in jail in Kosovo for not reporting their presence to police. 3 were
from the Bay Area. They were released Mar 23.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A11)(SFC,
3/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 21, It was reported
that Chinese researchers had discovered heavy industrial pollution
in the snow around the North Pole.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 21, In Germany
Christina Nytsch (11) was found raped and murdered in woods 8 miles
from her home in Struecklingen. In April Police began collecting
saliva from 18,000 local men to test for a DNA match. Police found a
match and arrested a suspect in Elisabethfehn in May, 1998. The man,
a father of 3 children, confessed to another rape of an 11-year-old
girl in Jan, 1996.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A18)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A24)
1998 Mar 21, In Jordan Sheik
Assad Bayoud Tamini (86), a militant Muslim leader who later
advocated peace with Israel, died in Amman.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 21, In Nigeria Pope
John Paul II arrived in Abuja and began urging the military
government to respect human rights and release political prisoners.
He pressed the military regime to release dozens of prisoners,
including prominent opposition figures and journalists.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A2)(AP, 3/21/99)
1998 Mar 21, Maciej
Slomczynski, Polish translator, died at age 77. He made Polish
translations of Shakespeare’s complete works, Joyce’s "Ulysses" and
works by Faulkner, Swift and Milton.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 22, President Clinton
departed Washington for an historic 12-day tour of Africa.
(AP, 3/22/99)
1998 Mar 22, A deeply divided
United Auto Workers union approved a new contract with Caterpillar
Inc., ending a 6 1/2-year contract battle.
(AP, 3/22/99)
1998 Mar 22, In Miles Township,
Pa., 11 students were killed in a cabin fire while on a camping
trip.
(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A2)(AP, 3/22/99)
1998 Mar 22, Kosovo Albanians
elected Ibrahim Rugova as president. Serb officials pronounced the
elections meaningless.
(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 22, In Moldova
elections were held and the Communist party received about 30% of
the vote. Political parties scrambled to form a coalition to keep
the Communists out of power.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A14)
1998 Mar 22, A Philippine
Airbus 320 jetliner overshot its runway on landing and hit a row of
houses and a disco in Bacolod. 3 people were killed and a hundred
injured.
(WSJ, 3/23/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 23, In the 70th
Academy Awards the film Titanic tied the record by winning 11 Oscars
including best picture and best director (James Cameron) and song
("My Heart Will Go On"). Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson won the best
actor awards and Kim Bassinger and Robin Williams won the best
supporting actors awards.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A1)(AP, 3/23/08)
1998 Mar 23, Pres. Clinton
visited Ghana, the first nation where Peace Corps volunteers were
sent. He hailed "the new face of Africa" as he opened a historic
six-nation tour.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/23/99)
1998 Mar 23, The U.S. Supreme
Court allowed term limits for state lawmakers.
(AP, 3/23/99)
1998 Mar 23, The California
State Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts were a private
organization and not subject to the state’s anti-discrimination
laws.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 23, In California a LA
Fire Dept. helicopter crashed while transporting an injured
12-year-old girl to a hospital. The girl and 3 others were killed.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 23, In Pakistan rival
groups clashed in Karachi and 17 people were killed.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.T14)
1998 Mar 23, Serbian and
Albanian leaders agree to allow ethnic Albanians into the state
university system in Kosovo.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 23, In South Korea the
president ordered the pay of 930,000 public servants cut to raise
funds for the unemployed.
(WSJ, 3/24/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 23, Pres. Yeltsin
fired his entire cabinet. Some cabinet members were ordered to stay
until replacements were named. He named Sergei Kiriyenko (35), an
energy minister, as acting premier.
(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/24/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 23-25, Pres. Clinton
was scheduled to visit Uganda.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)
1998 Mar 24, The Clinton
administration announced a $56 million food and medical supply
donation to Indonesia.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)
1998 Mar 24, In Jonesboro,
Ark., 2 boys, Mitchell Johnson (13) and Andrew Golden (11), opened
fire on a group of schoolchildren and killed four girls and one
teacher and wounded 11 others. The older boy was angry at a girl who
had broken up with him. Golden had stolen 7 guns from his
grandfather. The boys were remanded to the Division of Youth
Services until their 18th birthdays. Federal prosecutors used
weapons laws to keep the boys locked up until age 21. Mitchell
Johnson was due to be released in 2005.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A1)(SFC,
8/12/98, p.A3)(AP, 8/12/05)
1998 Mar 24, In California the
Oakland City Council voted to adopt a Jobs and Living Wage Ordnance
that mandated businesses contracting with the city to pay workers at
least $8 an hour with benefits or $9.25 without benefits. It was the
17th city nationwide to adopt such an ordnance.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A21)
1998 Mar 24, The UN announced a
pullout from Afghanistan after the governor of Kandahar slapped the
face of a UN employee.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)
1998 Mar 24, In Colombia
leftist guerrillas killed at least 9 people, wounded 14 and took 20
hostages when they blocked a major highway 30 miles south of Bogota.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 24, In India a tornado
killed 105 people and some 500 were missing. At least 80 died in the
Midnapore district of West Bengal state and some 1,100 were injured.
At least 200 people were killed and thousands injured from a tornado
in West Bengal and Orissa states.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C3)(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 24, In Indonesia a
plan to service its $74 billion foreign debt was being modeled on
the Mexican debt program of the 1980s. Some 4 million construction
and manufacturing jobs were already lost due to the crises.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A18)
1998 Mar 24, In Kosovo Albanian
separatists ambushed a police patrol and one policeman was killed.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 24, In Kyrgyzstan
Prime Minister Apas Dzhumagulov (63) resigned due to age and said
new forces were needed for reform. He was expected to be appointed
as an ambassador.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.C14)
1998 Mar 24, In South Korea the
government fired two-thirds of the senior officials at its spy
agency in a move to get the agency out of domestic politics.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 24, In Ukraine Vasyl
Koryak, mayor of Lubny in central Poltava, was badly wounded when
gunmen opened fire on his car.
(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar 25, Pres. Clinton
visited Rwanda. Shaken by horror stories from the worst genocide
since World War II, President Clinton grimly acknowledged during his
Africa tour that "we did not act quickly enough" to stop the
slaughter of up to 1 million Rwandans four years earlier.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13) (AP, 3/25/99)
1998 Mar 25, The FCC netted
$578.6 million at auction for licenses for new wireless technology.
(AP, 3/25/99)
1998 Mar 25, The executive body
of the EU endorsed a proposal for 11 nations to be part of the new
system. These included Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the
Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Finland, Ireland, Austria and
Luxembourg.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 25, Russia promised to
support a comprehensive arms embargo against Yugoslavia, but did not
support new sanctions urged by the US.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 25, In Tajikistan
Islamic rebels killed over 60 government troops and held another 60
hostage after a 2-day battle near the capital.
(WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 26, President Clinton
stood with President Nelson Mandela in a racially integrated South
African parliament to salute a country that was "truly free and
democratic at last."
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/26/99)
1998 Mar 26, The US federal
government endorsed a new HIV test that yielded instant results.
(AP, 3/26/03)
1998 Mar 26, In Nevada a new
satellite-based survey of the Yucca Mountain site for storing
radioactive wastes indicated that the Earth’s crust at the site was
stretching 10 times faster than previous studies have shown.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 26, In Greece a 2-day
storm closed the Athens airport and left much of the capital without
electricity. At least one person was killed.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A14)
1998 Mar 26, In Japan the
ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced a $124 billion economic
stimulus package.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A13)
1998 Mar 26, In Kenya a fire at
a school near Mombasa killed 25 teenage girls in their dormitory.
(WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 26, In Malaysia riots
flared in 4 detention camps that housed mainly Indonesian illegal
immigrants. The Internal Security Act allowed the detention without
trial of people caught helping illegals. 8 inmates and one policeman
were killed. Over 200 inmates escaped from one camp.
(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 26, In Mexico a mob in
Huejutla lynched 2 suspected kidnappers after a judge ordered the 2
men freed on $600 bail. 30 residents were arrested in the lynching.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A14)
1998 Mar 26, In the Philippines
Imelda Marcos claimed to have $800 million in foreign banks and
promised to give it all to the poor if she is elected in May.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A14)
1998 Mar 26, In Serbia Pres.
Milosevic ordered several hundred additional police to Kosovo. Serbs
protested the killing of a policeman and 2 ethnic Albanians were
killed in a police counterattack.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 26, Three major Swiss
banks pledged to set up a compensation fund in the US for a global
settlement with Holocaust victims.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 27, The US Food and
Drug Administration approved the drug Viagra, made by Pfizer, saying
it helped about two-thirds of impotent men improve their sexual
function. Viagra’s effects were shown to last 8-12 hours. Pfizer had
originally tested the compound UK 92,480 as a drug for angina and
found that male volunteers were getting frequent erections. They
renamed it Viagra and sought sales approval.
(AP, 3/27/99)(SFC, 5/28/02, p.A4)(Econ, 7/16/05,
p.76)
1998 Mar 27, It was reported
that toxic waste was sold to 454 fertilizer companies by 600 steel
mills, foundries and chemical plants between 1990-1995.
(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.A1,B8)
1998 Mar 27, In California
federal documents were released that charged Dr. Aramais Paronyan
with heading a $13 million Medi-Cal fraud ring from LA to SF.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.E1)
1998 Mar 27, Robbers in
Commerce, east of LA, escaped with $2.94 million in cash from a
Dunbar Security armored car after shooting the driver.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A14)
1998 Mar 27, Two Afghans
convicted of murder had their throats cut in front of 30,000
spectators in Kabul’s sports stadium.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 27, Ferdinand Porsche
Jr., creator of the Porsche sports car, died at age 88 in Zell am
See, Austria. He was born in Wiener-Neustadt and moved to Germany
with his family after WW I where his father became chief engineer of
Daimler-Benz, the manufacturer of the Mercedes Benz cars. He wrote
an autobiography titled "Cars Are My Life."
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.B12)(AP, 3/27/99)
1998 Mar 27, Argentina, Brazil
and Paraguay signed a pact to heighten security on their triple
frontier.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 27, In Colombia rebels
under Commandante Romana freed 9 Colombian hostages but held 4
American birdwatchers and an Italian businessman for ransom.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 27, In Cuba two oil
tankers collided and spilled heavy crude into Matanzas Bay, 60 miles
east of Havana.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 27, In Mexico Adrian
Carrera Fuentes, former director of the Federal Judicial Police, was
arrested on charges of being on the payroll of the Arellano Felix
drug gang.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 27, In Northern
Ireland a former policeman was shot and killed by masked gunmen in
Armagh.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 27, In Paraguay the
Supreme Court ratified Lino Oviedo as the ruling Colorado Party’s
candidate, despite his jail sentence.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 27, Pres. Yeltsin
nominated acting Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko (35) to head the
government.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 28, President Clinton,
during his visit to South Africa, went to Soweto, a landmark in the
bloody uprising against apartheid, to honor South Africans "who
answered the call of conscience" and defeated their country's system
of white supremacy.
(AP, 3/28/99)
1998 Mar 28, It was reported
that the US government conducted a series of "sub-critical"
underground explosions involving radioactive plutonium in a sealed
chamber 960 feet below ground at the Los Alamos National Lab.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 28, In France tens of
thousands marched in demonstrations against the right-wing National
Front, which made gains in recent regional elections.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 28, In India the Hindu
Nationalist BJP won a confidence vote in parliament by a narrow
margin, 274-261.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 28, In Madagascar the
locust swarm was reported to have covered an estimated 24 million
acres in the south of the country.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 28, In Russia former
Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin announced his candidacy for the
presidential election in 2000.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 29, The Lady Vols of
Tennessee won a third straight NCAA basketball championship,
defeating Louisiana Tech.
(AP, 3/29/99)
1998 Mar 29, In Denver 4 men
beat a cabbie, Mostapha Maarouf of Morocco, to death as people
watched from their high-rise apartments. One person was arrested.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A4)
1998 Mar 29, In Minnesota
twisters from St. Peter to Comfrey damaged an estimated 819 homes
and left 2 people dead.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 29, In Cambodia
civilians fled fighting between factions of the Khmer Rouge.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 29, In Mexico Carol
Janet Schlosberg, an American artist, was raped and beaten at Puerto
Escondido. She was then tossed into the Pacific and drowned. In 1999
Cirilo Olivera Lopez and Rosendo Marquez Gutierrez were convicted
and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/7/99, p.C2)
1998 Mar 29, In Palestine the
body of Mohiyedine Sharif, a master bomb-maker for Hamas, was found
at the scene of an exploded car in Ramallah. His body had bullet
holes. Israel denied involvement in the killing. Sharif was a member
of the Izzedine Qassam, a military wing of Hamas. Palestinian
security officials later assigned the murder to Adel Awadallah, a
rival for leadership in Hamas.
(SFC, 4/2/98, p.A12)(SFC, 4/798, p.A12)
1998 Mar 29, In Peru an air
force plane evacuating people stranded by flooding crashed in Piura.
Twenty-two people were killed when a Russian-made Antonov military
plane crashed into a Peruvian shantytown outside the northern city
of Piura.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A10)(AP, 3/29/99)
1998 Mar 29, In Portugal the $1
billion, 10-mile Vasco da Gama bridge over the River Tagus opened in
time to bring traffic from Spain for the Lisbon Expo.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 29, In Russia Andrei
Klimentyev, a controversial entrepreneur, won the mayoral election
in Nizhny Novgorod. The election was invalidated on Apr 1 and
Klimentyev was arrested on Apr 2 for instigating civil disobedience.
He had been convicted in 1997 of embezzling $2.5 million.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B5)
1998 Mar 29, In Somalia
factional fighting killed 13 people in Hobyo, 2 days before a
national reconciliation conference.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 29, In the Ukraine
parliamentary elections gave the Communists about 121 of 450 seats.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 29-1998 Mar 31, Pres.
Clinton visited Botswana and took 2 days off to explore the Chobe
National Park, home to 45,000 elephants and other species.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, The Univ. of
Kentucky beat the Utah Utes 78-69 at the Alamodome in San Antonio
for the NCAA men’s basketball finals. It was Kentucky’s 7th national
title.
(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A16)
1998 Mar 30, In eastern Arizona
nearly a dozen Mexican gray wolves were released into the White
Mountains after an absence of 30 years.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 30, In Columbia Falls,
Mont., it was reported that $100 million would be distributed
amongst 1000 employees of the Columbia Falls Aluminum plant. Roberta
Gilmore led a winning legal suit that claimed the company did not
divvy out profits to workers as promised.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1,12)
1998 Mar 30, In Algeria some
123 people including 58 civilians and many children were reported
killed in the west and south in the last 3 days.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, In Armenia Prime
Minister Robert Kocharian led the runoff vote with 60%.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, In Britain the
Rolls-Royce company of Vickers PLC was sold to BMW of Germany for
$570 million. However, BMW was later successfully outbid by
Volkswagen AG
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)(AP, 3/30/08)
1998 Mar 30, Prince Norodom
Ranariddh returned to Cambodia and will oppose Hun Sen in the Jul 26
elections.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998 Mar 30, In Colombia it was
reported that oil pipeline sabotage had spilled 1.5 million barrels
of crude over the last decade.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 30, In Romania Prime
Minister Victor Ciorbea resigned and stepped down from his role as
mayor of Bucharest.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 30, In Somalia Ali
Mohamed Mahdi and Hussein Mohamed Aidid agreed to a joint
administration for Mogadishu after 7 years of fighting. 30 people
were killed as rival clans clashed in Kismayu.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 30, A Syrian-Iraqi
Health week started. Health Minister Iyad Shatti arrived in Iraq
from Syria with 12 trucks of food and medicine.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 31, For the first time
in history, the Clinton administration released a detailed financial
statement for the federal government showing its assets and
liabilities.
(AP, 3/31/99)
1998 Mar 31, Hon-Ming Chen,
Taiwanese leader of a spiritual sect in Garland, Texas, was to meet
God at 10 AM.
(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 31, Starcraft, a
military science fiction real-time strategy video game, was released
in South Korea. It was developed by Blizzard Entertainment, a
California-based company.
(Econ, 10/30/10,
p.71)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft)
1998 Mar 31, Former New York
Congresswoman Bella Abzug died at age 77.
(AP, 3/31/99)
1998 Mar 31, In Egypt a
sweeping press ban forbade publishing houses from printing in
tax-free zones. This amounted to a temporary de facto ban for over
50 publications that printed in the Nasr City tax-free zone outside
of Cairo.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 31, The EU set this
date for membership talks with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic,
Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus. Preliminary talks were also set with
Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A12)
1998 Mar 31, In Lille, France,
an 18-year-old boy was shot dead by a fellow student in front of his
classmates and teacher.
(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 31, The UN Security
Council imposed a new arms embargo on Yugoslavia to press Milosevic
to grant ethnic Albanians concessions in Kosovo.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A8)(AP, 3/31/99)
1998 Mar 31, In Cambodia
government soldiers made a major offensive to destroy the remnants
of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, which was disintegrating due to
defections and internal fighting.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 31, In Lebanon a
roadside bomb in the Israeli security zone killed 6 construction
workers in their pickup truck near Kaoukaba.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 31, It was reported
that in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province, women of the Padaung tribe
of Burma were attracting tourists with their necks elongated by
wearing brass coils. They began fleeing Burma’s Kayah state over a
decade ago.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998 Mar, In St. Augustine,
Fla., the Tragedy in US History Museum, created by L.H. "Buddy"
Hough, closed.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.A22)
1998 Mar, The US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention said sexual diseases such as
chlamydia were epidemic in the US and launched a campaign to raise
public awareness. 4 million new cases a year were being reported.
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.C16)
1998 Mar, Scientists at MIT
Lincoln Laboratory began watching the sky for near-Earth objects.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A8)
1998 Mar, In Buenos Aires,
Argentina, a law was repealed that granted police wide authority to
arrest prostitutes and drunks. A new law allowed prostitutes on the
streets.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.T13)
1998 Mar, The Azerbaijan
prosecutor-general informed Eldar Zeynalov, director of the human
rights center, that there were no political prisoners in Azerbaijan,
in contradiction of Zeynalov’s published article that there were 750
political prisoners. Zeynalov was warned that if wrote otherwise, he
would be thrown into jail.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar, In Hungary Viktor
Orban (34) founded Fidesz, a center-right opposition party.
(Econ, 4/10/10, p.54)
1998 Mar, In Indonesia the
1,000 member assembly will affirm the leader for the next 5 years.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A18)
1998 Mar, A US spy accompanied
a UN inspection team and placed an electronic eavesdropping system
in Baghdad.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A1)
1998 Mar, In Iraq Nassir
Hindawi, germ weapons scientist, was arrested as he prepared to flee
the country.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar, In Mexico Pres.
Zedillo issued a revised proposal of the 1996 San Andres Larrainzar
accord on autonomy for indigenous people.
(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar, In Nicaragua
Zoilamerica Ortega Murillo (30), the stepdaughter of former Pres.
Daniel Ortega, went public with charges that Ortega had sexually
abused her since she was 11 years old.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar, Saudi Arabia,
Venezuela and Mexico began talking to reduce oil output. They
pledged to take 2-3% of the world’s oil production off the market in
what came to be called the Riyadh Pact.
(WSJ, 6/23/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar, The Seoul government
approved a plan to compensate South Korean women used by Japan as
sex slaves from 1910-1945, when Japan colonized the Korean
peninsula.
(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A11)
1998 Mar, In Sierra Leone Ahmed
Kabbah was restored to power with the help of a Nigerian-led African
force that ousted the military junta. In May it was reported that
Sandline Int’l. was paid $10 million on behalf of Kabbah to arm and
train a force to return him to power. Peter Penfield, the British
ambassador, coordinated the operation. The planeloads of weaponry
that were brought were in direct violation of a UN arms embargo on
Sierra Leone. The US was reportedly kept informed of the entire
operation.
(SFC, 5/13/98, p.A11)
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